My country:
Friday afternoon the president sighed the controversial “Anti-terror law” that vastly expands police powers, allows people to be arrested without warrants on mere suspicion of terrorism etc. Interesting timing, right after China applies a new anti-terror low to Hong Kong (and rightly gets castigated for it by countries all over the world) and also right after the PNP (who promise not to abuse their newfound powers) are under criticism for killing some soldiers in a misencounter and tampering with the crime scene to cover it up.
All entries tagged movies.
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Jul 2020
Jun 2020
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My stuff: This week’s pandemic notes. Easily the most annoying thing this week: our broadband modem conked out Wednesday night. Customer support isn’t super responsive for local telcos: I called their support line the next day (support line is not even available 24/7!), got put on hold for 45 minutes TWICE before they agreed to send a repair crew over the next day (Friday). Friday morning I got a text that the technician visit was actually scheduled for SATURDAY morning.
May 2020
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It seems difficult to write about stuff today, when the world seems like it is on fire. For historical context, for the past few days the USA, presumably a first-world nation, has been in the grip of massive protests and riots and police brutality following the murder of a black man by four police officers was captured on video and went viral. Basically, many states are responding to protests against police brutality with… police brutality.
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My Stuff: This week’s quarantine notes. Work: A bit of Laravel work, and a bit of server management and deployment. Nothing too ridiculous. Watching: Haven’t watched much this week. There was the really great Justice League Dark: Apokolips War which came out last week. Apparently it’s the last one for the DC AMU, or this particular timeline at least. Quiz: We are now up to 3 locally produced online quiz nights per week, which seems like a lot because we only used to attend 2-3 live events per month.
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My Stuff: Early this morning I took a walk outside for the first time since the lockdown started. Previously I had only gone out for groceries and meds. Only for less than 30 mins, and only in our subdivision, walking up and down the street. It’s good to be walking again, although this short and limited route is quite boring and full of neighbor’s dogs barking at me, so I’m not too fond of it, but it’s better to get the habit started again since I’ve been feeling the fatness piling on due to the quarantine and the lack of exercise.
Apr 2020
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Reply to 'I created a Netflix (34 countries) search site with lists, filters and sort.' on /r/movies:
Does Netflix have an open API? I remember looking around for it before but couldnt find any details.
Also any chance you could also serve rss feeds for new netflix shows/movies added per country?
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This week went by quickly, for some reason. And despite the fact that it’s summer, the rains have started coming in early, although only sporadically. inb4 “the world is healing” The COVID19 Diary is still being updated every few days. Actually went out 3 times this week, once for groceries, and twice for meds for the parental units (one would assume they would coordinate so I can just buy everything in one go, but nooooo.
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I stopped updating the COVID19 Diary for a few days (last update was on Maunday Thursday), and I feel like that was a healthier choice overall. It helped that nothing significantly newsworthy happened over the long weekend. (Well, there’s still thousands of deaths worldwide, but somehow our bar for “significant” has shifted quite a bit.) Our lockdown has of course been extended to the end of April. I expect it will go beyond that though, likely the earliest chance for things to start going back to normal might be by June.
Mar 2020
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My COVID19 Diary is still ongoing, although that TOC is starting to get unwieldy. Need to think of a better UX solution for that. “Time is meaningless under extreme enhanced community quarantine” (Click to view full-size) “Time is meaningless under extreme enhanced community quarantine” 29 Mar 2020 12:00amView postClose I know it’s probably unrealistic, but I’m hoping the lockdown somehow gets lifted sooner rather than later.
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(Too late for the theatrical release, but it’s tradition for comic book movies, so here we are.) Overall: Totally watchable, maybe slightly better than Suicide Squad for me. Somehow still fits into some kind of DCEU continuity (after Suicide Squad) the movie is really centered around Harley, to the detriment of the other characters. I can understand why they titled it the way they did, and I can appreciate the effort to have Harley carry a Birds of Prey introduction to the masses.
Feb 2020
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2020 Movies update: 7 movies watched in Feb. Probably the best movie I’ve seen this month was Knives Out. (Jojo Rabbit close second.) The goal of 200 movies for the year is getting farther! As for TV, I think most of my watching time was spent rewatching Rick and Morty for quiz purposes lol. Well, Criminal Minds ended, so there’s that. Arrowverse has been meh, though I did enjoy Supergirl’s 100th episode.
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2020 movies no. 18: Knives Out. “A fantastic murder mystery, maybe the best I’ve ever seen, great performances all around.” https://roytang.net/lists/2020/movies/
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2020 #movies 17: Uncut Gems. “Sandler gave a good performance, but I struggled to get through the early parts of the movies because his character and situation are so unrelatable to me personally.” https://roytang.net/lists/2020/movies/
Jan 2020
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I wasn’t sure if I should continue this watching-lately series since I already set up a separate page for listing my 2020 movies watched. It might have been more consistent to have a list for the 2020 TV shows also? But then again, TV shows are a much different beast, since each show/season is broken into an episode and sometimes you watch them all in one go or sometimes over the span of a few months.
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Apparently I’m not done looking back at the 2010s yet. I had some “top tens of 2010s” discussions with some friends recently, here are my personal lists, each in no particular order: My Top Ten Movies of the 2010s Avengers Endgame (2019).. I’m keeping only one slot per franchise, so I had to choose an MCU movies for this. Runner-ups for this slot were Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America Winter Soldier, and individually either one of those movies might be around the same or better than Endgame, but Endgame is the culmination of a decade’s worth of movies and gave me the most enjoyment as a comic book fan.
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List of new (to me) movies watched in 2020. Ongoing!
Ratings scale:
- 5: I regret that I can never again watch it for the first time
- 4: I would enjoy watching it again
- 3: I wouldn’t mind watching it again, maybe running in the background while I do other things
- 2: I would not want to watch it again
- 1: If you suggest watching it, it might be time to end the friendship
# Title Release Year Date Watched Notes Rating (out of 5) 1 Sicario 2015 Jan 05 Great thriller movie, but the lesson here is so bleak 5 2 Paprika 2006 Jan 08 Colorful, vivid and great animation but so so bizaare 4 3 Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) 2014 Jan 08 Insanely good, I can see why it won best picture 5 4 Looper 2012 Jan 09 Entertaining enough, but raises so many time travel questions 4 5 John Wick 2 2017 Jan 12 Better than I expected 5 6 Ad Astra 2019 Jan 13 Kinda draggy 3.5 7 Klaus 2019 Jan 13 Surprisingly good. Fantastic animation 5 8 Marriage Story 2019 Jan 14 Great performances. Ma didn’t like the ending. 5 9 Fist of Fury 1972 Jan 14 Great fight scenes. Actually a bit more plot than I expected 5 10 Coming to America 1988 Jan 15 I had low expectations, but it was better than I thought it would be. Ma would like it! 3.5 11 MIB International 2019 Jan 15 Kind of predictable 3 12 Batman vs TMNT 2019 Jan 16 Ridiculous, but fun. Good for kids. 4 13 6 Underground 2019 Jan 17 The editing and scene transitions were all over the place. A very Michael Bay film. 3.5 14 The Wolf of Wall Street 2013 Jan 18 This movie does nothing to improve my opinion of modern capitalism. 4.5 15 Parasite 2019 Jan 19 Really good, but IDK how to begin to describe it. Worth overcoming the 1 inch subtitle barrier for. 5 16 Kiki’s Delivery Service 1989 Feb 04 Very light-hearted and idyllic. At first it felt a bit boring, but it had me smiling by the end. 5 17 Uncut Gems 2019 Feb 07 Sandler gave a good performance, but I struggled to get through the early parts of the movies because his character and situation are so unrelatable to me personally. 4 18 Knives Out 2019 Feb 09 A fantastic murder mystery, maybe the best I’ve ever seen, great performances all around. 5 19 Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World 2003 Feb 10 Watched this because a redditor said ROTK robbed it of best picture in 2003. This is a great war movie, but he was wrong 5 20 Jojo Rabbit 2019 Feb 11 Best movie about a Nazi ever. Most colorful depiction of Nazi Germany. Fantastic movie. 5 21 Superman: Red Son 2020 Feb 27 An acceptable adaptation of one of my favorite Superman stories. Minus points for not including the “House of L” epilogue. 4 22 Coach Carter 2005 Feb 27 I watched this because I saw it in a “top inspirational speeches” YT video. Pretty good sports movie. 4 23 Billy Madison 1995 Mar 23 Watched this so I know the context of the “I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul” clip. Typical early Sandler movie. 3 24 Princess Mononoke 1997 Mar 23 Much more action-packed than the last Ghibli movie I watched. Beautifully animated. 5 25 Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn 2020 Mar 25 Spoiler-free review 4 26 Logan Lucky 2017 Mar 25 Fun heist movie, but I find it hard to take the characters seriously. Might be some anti-redneck bias. 4 27 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 2012 Mar 30 See below 4 28 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug 2013 Apr 07 See below 4 29 Project 88: Back to the Future Too 2020 Apr 10 Fantastic fan-made shot-by-shot recreation of Back to the Future II, put together during quarantine, w/ stop motion, kids, sock puppets, bananas, potatoes and much more! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcUUjWbVc4I 5 30 The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies 2014 Apr 10 This trilogy had far too many extra things that weren’t in the books, but it was pretty good. I rank them Desolation > Five Armies > Journey. 4 31 The Departed 2006 Apr 10 This was intense. I liked it more than Goodfellas. 5 32 Spirited Away 2001 Apr 15 Shades of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. Easily the best Ghibli film I’ve watched so far. 5 33 Psych the Movie 2017 May 03 It’s like an extended episode of Psych! 4 34 Ready Player One 2018 May 05 A predictable yet fun romp. 4 35 The Siege 1998 May 05 Caught this on Cinemax when I went down for lunch. Much too idealistic in hindsight, given what happened in New York 3 years after this film released. 3 36 Kong: Skull Island 2017 May 07 Exciting popcorn movie. 4 37 Ang Huling El Bimbo: The Musical 2019 May 08 Ok, so this one isn’t really a movie. The appeal for me is mostly the music and the nostalgia. The plot was serviceable, though some may find it problematic. 4 38 Justice League Dark: Apokolips War 2020 May 15 This was great, and appropriatly dark. Good send-off for the DCAMU. 4 39 Zombieland Double Tap 2019 May 27 A fun romp, but pretty much more of the same. 3 40 Sonic the Hedgehog 2019 Jun 27 Fun with Ben Schwartz, but James Marsden’s character is kinda dumb. Needs a lot of suspension of disbelief. 3 41 Mission Impossible Fallout 2018 Jun 29 Good watch, it’s MI, you know how it goes. Maybe 40% of it is Tom Cruise running. 3 42 Atomic Blonde 2017 Jul 11 I came in thinking it was a John Wick style action movie. True, but it’s also a Cold War spy thriller. Nice twists, but might be a bit hard to follow near the end. 3 43 The Old Guard 2020 Jul 12 Didn’t know what to expect, never read the Greg Rucka graphic novel on which it was based. Action-packed, fun watch. 4 44 Superman Man of Tomorrow 2020 Aug 28 Not too good. Weird animation. Writing all over the place. 3 45 Bill and Ted Face the Music 2020 Aug 29 A most excellent sequel, echoing the earlier two movies. A midlife crisis journey full of heart and time travel nonsense. Little Billie and Theda are great! 5 46 Enola Holmes 2020 Sep 27 It’s okay. Basically young adult/Nancy Drew Sherlock Holmes, with a bit of feminism thrown in. Mycroft annoying as usual. 3 47 Wonder Woman 1984 2020 Dec 30 There’s a bunch of things that don’t make sense (even accounting for myths etc), but it helps to think this movie takes place pre-crisis. 3
Dec 2019
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Been watching a lot of things this December. I finally got back on The Expanse after finishing S1 more than a year ago. I only finished S2, but it was already a vast improvement over S1. S1 felt like a lot of meandering around until the characters actually ran into the plot. S2 was stronger, faster-paced, and there’s always a lot of things going on in each episode. I really like this series now, looking forward to S3 and S4 when I have the time.
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I watched the most recent Star Wars last night. Spoiler-free review posted here.
Since this ended the sequel trilogy and the entire “Skywalker Saga”, I thought it deserved a bit more spoilery discussion.
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RISE OF SKYWALKER Spoiler-free review:
- the movie is fine and entertaining to watch
- It’s a Star Wars movie, so you pretty much know what to expect, space wizards and space battles and such
- pacing is frantic in the first act, and a bit in the second. Abrams has a lot of things he wants to do and limited time to do it, so things happen in rapid succession
- the third act is basically an ode to Return of the Jedi, as a parallel to The Force Awakens’ ode to A New Hope. In fact, there is a lot of fanservice for original trilogy fans sprinkled throughout the movie.
- it is not the best ending I could have imagined for the sequel trilogy, but it is an ending
- there are a few twists and turns in the movie, but because it’s Star Wars, you largely know what to expect from the overall plot
- magugustuhan ba ni Mama: The movie is generally family-friendly (outside of the violence), but my mom doesn’t like space battles and she would probably be confused by the rapid pace of events and all these characters she’s not familiar with, so no.
- I watched in IMAX 3D, but I don’t think there was much noticeable 3D, the movie is probably perfectly fine without IMAX
- there is no post-credits scene
- I think I liked The Last Jedi more than this one
I have a bit more spoilery comments posted here.
Nov 2019
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Nothing in the cinema this month (going to the cinema is expensive!). I did watch a couple of animated movies this month: Dragonball Super: Broly. I have some vague recollection of watching the original Broly movie, and I believe this one is much better. DBS Broly is a slightly more nuanced character than just “random raging monster” from the previous non-canon movie. The animation was okay, you could tell the animators were having fun with some of the battle parts. -
Actually watched something in the cinema this month: Joker. I wasn’t originally sure if I wanted to see it, I wasn’t hyped for it at all in the months prior. But as the showing date came nearer, there was a lot of buzz around it so I decided to go anyway. I don’t feel like it lived up to the hype and the warnings about promoting incel stuff, but at least it’s one of the higher-grossing DC movies, so maybe we’ll have more to come in that vein.
Oct 2019
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JOKER spoiler-free review:
- very dark movie, not like any previous superhero movies at all; don’t bring your kids
- it is violent and potentially disturbing, but strangely not as much as the hype made it out to be
- Joaquin Phoenix definitely gives a pretty good performance, but IDK about the supposed “Oscar-worthy” hype
- some of the shots feels like the director definitely had a lot of fun bringing this story to life
- I would have liked less connection to the Batman mythos so that this movie is more stand-alone. I mean, it is pretty much stand-alone, but it does remind you where it’s set and direct connections to the Mythos exist
- I think a lot of the story and plot elements are handled well, any concerns I have would largely be nitpicking
- No post credits scene
- i didnt watch in imax and don’t think it would be relevant
- magugustuhan ba ni mama: sure NO
- Ultimately, I still prefer that Joker’s origin story remain undetermined, as it makes him more akin to a natural force of chaos, but I accept this movie as a version that even canon Joker could have told and that might have been believable
- it’s definitely a better movie overall than Suicide Squad, Man of Steel or Dawn of Justice or Justice League, but it’s also a different completely type of movie, so the comparison is difficult
- I still like Ledger’s Joker the best, the character is best opposite Batman
Sep 2019
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I finally got around to watching X-Men Dark Phoenix which I skipped when it came out mainly because (a) poor reviews, and while normally I’d have watched it anyway since I have not missed any of the X-Men movies in the cinema, not even the horrendous Wolverine Origins, there was also to consider that (b) I was in the US at the time and was only willing to spend my precious dollars on one expensive American cinema and Spider-man Far From Home won out.
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I finally watched Dark Phoenix today. It was not as bad as I thought it would be, but the #xmen jet did have a port where Cyclops could put his head so they can use him as a cannon, and apparently Nightcrawler can teleport 4 people across an entire city so there’s that
some weird character choices too. I mean, Erik’s lackeys were basically random unknown mutants (I didn’t even realize who Selene was supposed to be until she fell off the train). Not to mention the obscure Marvel alien race in the movie.
At least we got our space firebird thingy so there’s that
Aug 2019
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Hmm, surprisingly I haven’t watched too much stuff this month. Eigasai I watched a Japanese film at Eigasai in UP Diliman for the first time ever, upon the invite of some friends. We saw One Cut of the Dead a comedy zombie film. It was great and it was hilarious, although you must make sure not to lose patience with the first thirty minutes. I went in blind not knowing anything about it other than “Japanese comedy zombie movie”, so you should too!
Jul 2019
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I was travelling for most of the past two months, so this covers both June and July, and I guess I haven’t been able to watch too much. Maybe? IDK, we’ll see. Since I was in the US, I took the opportunity to finish watching Voltron: Legendary Defender which only had two seasons available on PH Netflix. Pretty good adaptation, lots of fun callbacks to the old series. Some annoying filler eps, especially in the middle seasons onwards.
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I know I already made a whole post about the MCU after Endgame came out, but after the MCU Phase 4 announcements this past weekend at SDCC I was a bit hyped. I thought it would be fun to look back at the past 10 years of MCU Phase 1-3 and see what I wrote about the movies. Iron Man (2008) Surprisingly, I had written nothing about watching this film at all, and I don’t remember going to the cinema to watch it.
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First, the spoiler-free review, then more spoilery stuff afterwards. I watched Far From Home while I was… far from home. great movie, lots of fun, and the stakes are a lot higher than the Vulture just stealing some tech off Tony Stark basically a story of Peter Parker the high school student trying to juggle his Spider-Man problems with his high school life, which was one of the best eras of comic book Spider-Man the movie gives us a look at what the world looks like post-Endgame and how weird it is for everyone if you’ve seen the trailers, you know who the “villain” is and you have certain expectations coming in.
May 2019
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The big TV thing of May 2019 was of course, the much maligned finale for Game of Thrones. I’ve written about that separately here. Most of the US TV series also ended their runs in May. Arrowverse show seasons were littered with poor writing as usual. I rank the seasons in this order: best is Legends of Tomorrow season 4. The reason Legends is the best is that they’re not afraid to be outrageous.
Apr 2019
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I’ve already written extensively about Avengers Endgame, but there are other things I watched this month too. Shazam came out early this month, and while it was unfortunately sandwiched between MCU blockbusters, it was a fun adventure romp and surprised me in a few ways. I wrote a short spoiler-free review over on Tumblr. TV-wise, I’ve been on a rewatch binge of 30 Rock that unfortunately started with season 4 due to Amazon Prime’s weird way of presenting things.
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I already wrote about Avengers Endgame a bit in yesterday’s post, but that was a bit rushed and I had more thoughts, so here we are. I figured I might as well get everything out. There will be unmarked spoilers for Avengers Endgame and Agents of SHIELD. Before even going into the movie that was seemingly sold out everywhere despite being on almost every cinema screen in the Metro, I was thinking to myself what a phenomenon.
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Two endgames to discuss in one post! MTG War of the Spark and Avengers Endgame spoilers ahoy! Endgame #1: War of the Spark (Click to view full-size) 27 Apr 2019 5:56amClose The latest Magic set has been a home run in terms of lore and flavor and storytelling, bringing the last three years worth of MTG lore to its conclusion as the villainous dragon planeswalker Nicol Bolas aims to complete his plan to achieve omnipotence over the multiverse.
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I liked this movie, it had good heart, fun kid-friendly humor, and a strong message about family basically the story of a kid with a messed up life being stupid and trying to be better john glover is here! does he now hold the record for portraying the most number of parents of bald supervillains? that’s not a spoiler right? this movie is kid-friendly, aside from the violence and the occasional swear word there is a mid credits scene and the post credits scene.
Mar 2019
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The big one this month was Captain Marvel. I posted the usual spoiler-free review over on Tumblr, but I have some more spoiler-y thoughts over here: (Spoilers) While I thought the movie was ok, I was underwhelmed by the third act and specifically the lack of any serious threat for Carol to defeat towards the end of the movie. As this tumblr post explains more clearly than I ever could, perhaps the issue is that the narrative is not something targetted towards me as a man, who has not experienced the emotional gaslighting IRL that many women are exposed to.
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movie was pretty good, no major issues doesnt follow the typical MCU origin story ‘formula’ some weird pacing issues in a few places, but that just might be because of the chosen story direction lots of little call-outs and tie-ins to the other MCU movies (although I feel like they could have done a bit more in some spots) I am not a cat person. But if you are a cat person, you might like this: there is a cat.
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If you haven’t figured it out yet, I watch a lot of TV shows, rarely on TV itself though. I outgrew scheduled television maybe more than a decade ago. I’m reminded of this because I was going through some old disks and found burned episodes of stuff like Smallville, Heroes, The Simpsons, various anime, and so on. Those were from the days before streaming though. These days an abundance of content is available online via the streaming services, no need to store all those episodes yourself.
Feb 2019
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Some things I’ve been watching lately, aside from the usual TV shows I follow: I watched Alita: Battle Angel, with the friend who introduced me to the series in the first place. The movie looked fantastic and the fight scenes were great. Plot was supercondensed, several books’ worth of story combined into one. Ended in a weird place, kinda? Easily the best western live action anime adaptation by far. On 7 Feb 2019 2:06pm I wrote: Watched Alita: Battle Angel earlier today.
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(Click to view full-size) 18 Feb 2019 5:56amClose The quote is from the 1980s cult classic Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I didn’t include this movie in my top 10 movies post, but it and the sequel Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey are still among my childhood faves. These wise words are give by the Wyld Stallyns band composed of the epnoymous Bill and Ted, and form the philosophical basis of the future utopian civilization inspired by their music.
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I watched The Usual Suspects for the first time today. Holds up surprisingly well, despite the internet having spoiled Keyser Soze’s identity for me many years ago. I can see why Kevin Spacey won an Oscar for his performance here
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Watched Alita: Battle Angel earlier today. Pretty good. Fast pace, excellent visuals and fight scenes. They tried to cram a lot of the source material into a two hour movie. I felt like they ended in a weird spot, obviously expecting to be able to do a follow up
After watching I immediately passed by a friend’s house to borrow these. Must be more than a decade since I last read them
Jan 2019
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Some things I’ve been watching lately, aside from the usual TV shows I follow: Bumblebee only came out over here in January (thanks to the usual MMFF shenanigans), and I decided to watch it on a whim. Pretty decent soft reboot, read my spoiler-free review over on the Tumblr The first half of Young Justice Outsiders is out, and it’s pretty good. Focus is back on a smaller group after the larger team in YJ season 2.
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The first trailer for Spider-Man Far From Home dropped last week. I used to pretty hyped for superhero movie trailers, but I haven’t bother watching this one yet. MCU still has two more movies coming out before this one, and I’m already hyped enough for those, I don’t think I have hype to spare for a third one. My brother was complaining to me about the trailer, saying he was spoiled about some elements.
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BUMBLEBEE Spoiler-Free review!
- attached image summarizes the plot. loljk (credit: Transformers (1985 - Marvel) #2)
- I’m a big Transformers fan, more G1 than Bayverse (I didn’t even watch the last Michael Bay one). If you are like me, you will probably enjoy the film
- if you grew up in the 80s like me, you will enjoy the film a bit more. Props to the 80s soundtrack
- the plot is simple, straightforward and unambitious, unencumbered by any of Bayverse Megatron’s super-complicated plans that he has been plotting for million of years in case he gets stranded on earth
- not having a plethora of autobot and decepticon characters to develop on each side means the transformers are more distinctive and easier to identify, a big problem I had with the later bayverse films
- i didnt understand some scenes where it looked like the characters were talking to some kind of human soldier but I can’t see him?
- foolish humans!
- there is a “mid-credits” scene; I say “mid-credits” because they really only show the director credit before immediately going into the “mid-credits” scene
- magugustuhan ba ni mama: no, she’s not into giant robots. the movie is family-friendly, other than the violent explosions
- after the movie, I went to the CR to pee, and I overheard two kids talking: “Ano pangalan nung autobot na pula? Christopher?” “Cliffjumper!”
Dec 2018
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Some things I’ve been watching lately, aside from the usual TV shows I follow: I very much enjoyed Elseworlds, the Arrowverse crossover this year. I mean sure, a lot of it didn’t make any sense, but it was like a love letter to DC fans. I actually consider myself more of a Marvel fan than DC, but I still loved it! I wrote a spoiler-free review over on the Tumblr.
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Into the Spider-Verse spoiler-free review
- this is a great animated comic book movie, it makes me happy
- I may have been a bit overhyped by the early reviews, but it was very entertaining, funny and had brilliant presentation, melding the medium of movies with comic books in a way that has never been seen before
- again, the presentation is fantastic, the animation is great and intentional and the funky alternate universe stuff is represented well
- IDK if I would call it the best comic book movie of all time, or even the best Spider-Man movie of all time, but definitely one of the best animated movies of all time, for a comic book fan (highly specific lol)
- in fact, much respect to the writers who dared to bring this story to life. imagine the challenge of pitching a story idea to Sony about not just one new Spider-man, but several alternate universe versions of them. It’s not exactly comparable to a Disney movie plot after all, but they pulled it off
- between this movie and the PS4 game, I’m happy that Miles is making further inroads into the cultural zeitgeist
- Miles appearance here reminds me of Hey Arnold’s black friend lol
- maybe I would have appreciated the movie a bit more if I was into hip-hop or such
- comic book fans will be happy to know that this movie does not follow the actual Spider-Verse comic book arc along with its convoluted background of the inheritors. The plot and the opposition are much more straightforward
- Will Mama like it? Well …like all animated movies, with enough viewings at home by my nieces/nephews, maybe.
- This movie has the best post-credits scene of all time
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Aquaman Spoiler-Free review!
- I came in with low expectations (given DC’s history), but the movie turned out pretty good, even though it wasn’t the best comic book related thing I’ve seen this week (see previous post)
- it’s fun and action-packed, some fun set pieces and action sequences. Lots of CGI (as can be expected)
- the plot is fairly predictable, I’ve seen similar story arcs for this character more than once, things pretty much happen as you expect
- also the plot kinda feels a bit like black panther, except in reverse? does that make sense?
- the first act felt a bit longish, but not really draggy or anything, it’s just that there’s a lot of set up to be done
- the director’s horror movie background shines through a bit in one of the sequences around the second act
- I had the urge to pee about 1 hour in, but I had to hold it in until the end of the movie, I didn’t want to miss stuff. So much water didn’t help!
- Arthur’s dad looks like a Pinoy lol
- I didn’t watch in IMAX3D, but I suspect there’s a lot of 3d given the volume of CGI
- there is one mid-credits scene
- I’d say it’s family-friendly even though there is quite a bit of bloodshed
- magugustuhan ba ni Mama. Eh, maybe? Not really her type of movie, but maybe if I explain it a bit?
Spider-verse this weekend!
Nov 2018
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Some things I’ve been watching lately, aside from the usual TV shows I follow: For some reason, I watched two biopics this month. The first one is Hidden Figures, about three black women who were instrumental during the early days of NASA leading up to the Friendship 7 mission piloted by John Glenn. The movie is fairly interesting if you are even remotely interested in either the challenges faced in black history or math and science or the early days of the space program competition between the USA and Russia.
Oct 2018
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Some things I’ve been watching lately, aside from the usual TV shows I follow: Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (on Amazon Prime) – surprisingly good, even if I’m not too familiar with the Jack Ryan stuff. I only know John Krasinski from The Office, Spoilers for Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: (Spoilers) The story starts with Ryan tracking down Suleiman’s network via financials, but they never follow-up on who was financing his group I’m not sure what was the point of the whole drone pilot side story (including the weird trip to the casino and the night with the couple), although it was admittedly kind of entertaining Daredevil season 3 (on Netflix) – I enjoyed the season a lot.
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VENOM spoiler-free review:
- I wasn’t sure if I would watch this, given the poor critical response, but it’s an ok movie overall, fun to watch but nothing to write home about (though I wouldnt spend extra for Imax). I would say comparable with Thor: Dark World or Iron Man 2
- the first 15 mins or so felt draggy, but after that things happen quickly
- overall plot slightly predictable, and not too long, very straightforward
- a tiny bit of humor thrown in, not enough to make it feel like an MCU movie
- not sure if there’s something with the sound editing or some of the actors weren’t delivering their lines properly, but I had trouble with understanding the lines in some scenes
- the Venom symbiote seems to have some extra powers here (as compared to the comics)
- Tom Hardy does a good job here, I feel like he was having fun during this movie
- There is a mid-credits scene and a post-credits scene
- Would Mama like it? Hard no.
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This started as one of those silly Facebook memes where you post one thing every day and didn’t have to explain and you tagged other people and they continued with the meme. I was very bad at following the meme instructions, but I did find the exercise interesting. I found it difficult to identify 10 specific movies, and since I didn’t explain during the FB posts, I thought I’d make a blog post about them instead.