Author Archives: Doc

The Sadness

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I’m feeling a little queasy and shaken after watching The Sadness, the Taiwanese film from director Rob Jabbaz in his feature film debut arriving on Shudder last weekend. There were some scenes, especially in the first 15-20 minutes when things were starting to ramp up that really stuck with me in that “kicked-me-in-the-gut” way.

The Sadness started out with our two main protagonists, Jim (Berant Zhu) and Katie (Regina Lei) waking up, happily in bed. They seemed happy, despite Jim lacking drive in his life. While Katie prepared for work, Jim saw a TV broadcast talking about a pandemic sweeping the land called the Alvin virus. A doctor (a very Dr. Fauci type individual) argued with the news program about the dangers of the Alvin virus and how people should take it seriously.

As Jim took Katie to the train station, they passed by the police dealing with a man who had brutally murdered another person.

After dropping off Katie, Jim went for a coffee, where he and others in the shop were exposed to an older lady who viciously attacked other customers, that triggered a full out bloodbath. Jim ran from the suddenly bloodthirsty crowd, getting back to his place.

Meanwhile, Katie was being hit on by a weird businessman (Tzu-Chiang Wang) on the train just before someone else started to stab victims in the train.

The film was kind of like a zombie movie, but different because the zombies were not brainless, but, in actuality, vicious and horny. They were not only looking to eat their victims, but also sexually gratify themselves before consuming them. This twist in the zombie tale really made for some disturbing imagery in The Sadness and kept everybody tense and on their guard.

This is one of the goriest and, frankly, unnerving films I have seen in awhile, probably since the DailyView when I watched The Bay. I found myself, especially early in the film, crying out in shock and, perhaps, disgust as the shocks came quick and hard.

It may be a little too close to home with the Alvin virus being the cause of all of the death, and being debated and refuted by governments and the media until it is too late.

This is not a film for the faint-at-heart or someone who does not do well with the sight of blood. There is a lot of it here. However, it is an absolutely tense thriller with plenty of real frights as you follow the two main characters in their efforts to get back to one another. The Sadness is a creative adjustment to the zombie sub-genre of horror films and creates a mood of fear and lack of safety.

4 stars

Senior Year

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Rebel Wilson goes into a coma for twenty years and then awakes in the latest original movie from Netflix this weekend. I was in a coma for what felt like twenty years watching this.

In an attempt to become prom queen and grab her perfect life, Stephanie (Angourie Rice) went out of her way to become popular. She became the cheer captain, got her perfect boyfriend, and campaigned for prom queen. Unfortunately, Stephanie was injured during a cheerleader performance and spent 20 years in a coma.

When Stephanie (Rebel Wilson) awoke from the come, she found herself still mentally a 17 year old girl in the body of a nearly forty year old woman. She was somehow able to get up and walk around after being in a coma and not moving for 20 years, but why sweat the little details.

Stephanie decided to go back to high school to get her diploma and win that prom queen she was robbed of.

All of the high schoolers from Stephanie’s original class seemed to be stuck in their high school personas too, including Stephanie’s rival Tiffany (Zoe Chao), her old flame Blaine (Justin Hartley), her friend Seth (Sam Richardson), her old friend who was now principal Martha (Mary Holland) and her father Jim (Chris Parnell).

This was such a bad movie. I was ready for it to be over fifteen minutes into it. It was almost two hours, which was way too long. This should never have been more than 90 minutes. The plot itself was not developed enough to support that run time.

I guess I was supposed to be rooting for Stephanie during this entire film, but she was a horrible person. There was no one that wasn’t rotten. And it too long for Stephanie to start learning her lessons. By the time she did, I couldn’t care less.

There a ton of dance numbers in the film too. Most of those are fine. Some of the music is catchy.

This was meant to be some kind of fairy tale, but it just did not work on any level. Rebel Wilson looked great and brings a lot of energy to the role, but the character is so unlikable that I couldn’t care less what happened to her. None of the supporting characters are worth anything, with the possible exception of Sam Richardson, who has been great over the last few years. Nothing here makes sense and is so unrealistic. Had the film totally embraced the fantasy elements, it may have been better, but I found this so dumb and a waste of time.

1.3 stars

Friday Night Titans #12

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SPOILERS

2-0.

The new team of Adam Collins and Paul Oyama, team name Coast 2 Coast, wound up playing two games on tonight’s Friday Night Titans. One fun and lighthearted game with The Reel Rejects and a more tense and challenging main event against the new team of Mr. Erwin and Slick Nick Harley, The Appointment.

As soon as I had heard about Collins and Oyama were forming a new team, I thought this would be a real challenge for anyone, and we definitely saw this tonight as they competed against two very different teams.

And they won both. They were more dominant against the Reel Rejects, and won a close matchup with The Appointment.

Collins, now a member of Swag with Winston Marshall, is playing a character trying to look like he has more personality and has some dance moves. In reality, neither of these are Adam Collins’ strength, but his awkwardness is fun to watch.

The Appointment is a member of the Stars and Roxy Striar is doing some of the best heel work in years. The new Mr. Erwin character is great too. Nick Harley, however, may have been the standout character work of the show. Though Nick made several mistakes that helped lead to the loss, his character work as Mr. Erwin’s mouthpiece and overall dude with a bad attitude was very strong. I have said it before but Nick reminds me of WWE superstar Kevin Owens, and that is a really good thing. As he continues to learn the game, he has been excellent in the entertainment part of the show. The Appointment may have lost tonight, but I see big things for this pairing.

During these two games, there were two challenges made, both by Winston and I think both of them were BS. Winston had both of his challenges upheld, but I really disliked both of them. I thought both challenges were pickiness in situations where the others knew the answers.

Next week, Innergeekdom championship with Mike Kalinowski vs. Kevin Smets.

Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)

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I was never a fan of Disney’s Rescue Rangers when it was on TV, and when I heard talk about this 2022 reboot (if you want to call it that), I was anything but enthusiastic.

However, a couple trailers were entertaining and I started hearing some good word of mouth and so, with a specifically weaker movie weekend, Chip and Dale shot to the top.

And you know what? It was very entertaining.

Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers was very funny, more clever than it had any right to be, and had a wonderful story of friendship and forgiveness.

Chip (John Mulaney) and Dale (Andy Samburg) were riding high as the stars of their own Disney animated show, falling right into their typical patterns of humor. However, Dale was always feeling as if he were the second banana, far behind that of his more popular pal. So when he had a chance to get a solo show, he took it, not expecting it to be the end of Rescue Rangers.

So with the Rescue Rangers cancelled and the new project a no go, Chip and Dale went their separate ways.

Years later, animated characters are disappearing, being changed and forced to play knock off versions of themselves in bootleg films. When Monterey Jack (Eric Bana) disappeared, Chip and Dale had to come back together to try and help their old friend. Unfortunately, Chip and Dale found that they still had some issues to iron out between them before they could discover the truth.

I loved how the movie had such a potpourri of animation styles. One of the best jokes in the film is how Dale had a 3D surgery to change his animation style to 3D. It was a clever and cool idea. Then there were all kinds of animation styles from hand drawn to sock puppets to claymation in the film. There is also live action involved in the film.

There are some great voice actors involved here including J.K. Simmons, Seth Rogan, Will Arnett, Keegan-Michael Key, Dennis Haysbert, Tim Robinson, and Rachel Bloom.

There was a ton of special cameos of other animated characters including characters NOT owned by Disney, big characters not own by Disney. It brings back memories of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (including Roger Rabbit himself).

This is a great movie that was a lot of fun. There is something here for the whole family. It is on Disney + streaming service.

4.5 stars

Agent Carter S2 E2-3

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“A View in the Dark“

“Better Angels”

The second season picked up quickly with some great scenes in the second and third episodes, setting the stage for what was coming next for Agent Carter.

The show reestablished the connection between Peggy and Jarvis with a wonderful scene of Jarvis working out and challenging Peggy to a little sparring.

What I loved about this was how confident Ana Jarvis was. She knew exactly what was going on and she did not even once think that anything was going on between her husband and Peggy. A lesser show would have tried to use this as a way to create conflict, instead of a great character bit.

I have found something interesting about the show on this rewatch. Peggy and Dr. Jason Wilkes got close during these two episodes and Peggy believed he had been killed in the Zero Matter explosion. I remember, when this was first on, I was rooting for Jason and Peggy to get together, even though I could see that the show was working towards Peggy and Sousa. I wanted Peggy and Jason together. Now, I found myself thinking that this relationship had come out of nowhere and did not feel reasonable. I wonder if the fact that at the end of Avengers: Endgame, Peggy and Steve wound up together affected my thoughts on Peggy with another man. Add to that all of the Peggy and Steve stuff from What If…? that I found this to be happening too quickly for my tastes. Fascinating result.

Howard Stark’s reappearance always brings a ton of energy as well. Despite his being a massive playboy, Howard always seemed like a big brother to Peggy. Again, I loved that Peggy had a relationship with Howard Stark that did not include an intimate component.

I also remember how much I disliked Jack Thompson, even more than season one. He has looked like a crooked agent, bowing to the wants of Kurtwood Smith and the group behind the scenes. I do not remember if Thompson takes a turn for the better as the series goes on, but the newspaper headlines that Peggy told him she saw the day before, about a rigged election, made him raise an eyebrow.

Oh…and this guy isn’t long for the series.

Whitney Frost has the Zero Matter inside of her and it is slowly destroying her face (not to mention absorbing this guy’s entire body). She is a little scary and losing her grip on reality.

Agent Carter S2 E1

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“Lady in the Lake”

The second season of Agent Carter saw some loose ends tied up at the very beginning (or is it just setting up for more to come?) when Peggy and the SSR captured renegade Dottie Underwood and took her into custody. This at first felt as if they were just wrapping the first season’s arcs up so they could start off season two with a much different story.

Off to Los Angeles goes Peggy to meet up with Sousa was the chief of the new West coast branch of the SSR. Again, it felt as if the headaches from the New York branch were being sent away to a brand new world.

There seemed to be a murder of a woman in a lake in LA that was tied to a killer who had been quiet for several years. This body had been found frozen in a block of ice. Of course, Peggy’s instincts tell her that there is more to the case than what we see, and she is 100% correct.

We get a chance to meet Jarvis’s wife, who we only heard about in season one, and she had a short moment of screen time, but I fell in love with her immediately. She is a great bot of casting, bringing a character with such an opposite energy than Jarvis had. You could tell she and Peggy hit it off immediately.

They continue to build the romantic tension between Peggy and Sousa, but they tossed in a mysterious woman that Sousa was kissing at the end of the episode.

We are introduced to actress Whitney Frost is our main antagonist at the start of season two, as the wife of bigwig Calvin Chadwick, but he definitely did not feel like the person pulling the strings. Frost felt much more dominant than he did.

Dr. Jason Wilkes is introduced as well. He becomes an important piece of season two.

It is a fun start with a season that feels like a fresh reboot, keeping the best parts of season one.

Agent Carter S1 E6-8

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Last night, I decided that I was going to pause with the write-ups after the episode because I absolutely wanted to finish season one and, if I took the time to write about each episode, I would not have been able to finish the show. So tonight, after seeing the last three episodes back to back to back, I am doing one overall write-up.

Man, those three episodes were great. Building upon episode four and five, which I loved, these three eps just knocked it out of the park.

Some of my favorite moments:

  • The use of Howard Stark in a conclusion that is meant to bring us full circle from Captain America: The First Avenger.
  • Peggy telling the SSR the truth! It is a strange story beat to tell the truth is so uncommon. How many times can stories be fixed if people just talked to each other. I loved when Peggy and Jarvis just laid it all out.
  • The death of Chief Dooley was extremely well done and surprisingly emotional.
  • Speaking of emotional, Peggy pouring the blood of Steve Rogers into the water nearly brought me to tears. Powerful end for the series.
  • Peggy and Jarvis handcuffed to the table… LOL
  • Peggy showed off her skills and the SSR realized how kick ass she truly was.
  • Daniel Sousa picked up some slack in these episodes.
  • The massacre at the movie theater was brutal.
  •  Ivchenko. Come on. Gotta love those mentalists.
  • Post credit scene:  Ivchenko and Arnim Zola in the same4 cell, with Tobey Jones right there to play the role of Zola. I do not think this gets used in season two (I might be wrong about that) and that is a total shame.

This was so great. It felt like a series ahead of its time in the MCU. Peggy Carter brought such a gravitas in this series and Edwin Jarvis, and his loyalty to Agent Carter, was a special relationship. Howard Stark arrived as a total jerk with the heart of gold. We got to see the façade of Howard Stark crumble away in the finale and get a glimpse into the soul of Howard Stark.

Agent Carter S1 E5

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“The Iron Ceiling”

Another boomer of an episode as Neal McDonough reprised his role at Dum Dum Dugan, member of the 107th aka The Howling Commandos.

After breaking a code from the mysterious message that came across the typewriter at the end of last episode, Peggy talked herself onto the team that was heading to Russian to try and find out what they could on Leviathan and the connection with Howard Stark. Although, technically, Peggy wasn’t going to be allowed to go even after breaking the code. It required her delivering the Howling Commandos to be the ground support to get her on the team.

As soon as the adventure began, it became clear that Peggy was in her element and that Thompson was not the leader that he seemed. This episode really dove into his background, giving him reason to reconsider his stance on Peggy.

One of the best parts of the show was how Dum Dum and the Howling Commandos just accepted Peggy into their ranks and listened to what she said. Peggy hasn’t had this kind of respect from anyone in the SSR and watching even Dum Dum Dugan ask for Peggy’s leadership was awesome.

The raiding party was able to find a psychiatrist in the Russian prison who was there trying to keep a scientist balanced so he could design a weapon from Stark blueprints. They also saw more of the Black Widow program, including a little girl who wound up killing Junior Juniper, of the Howling Commandos.

I love how this still feels as if it is in continuity of the MCU. Agents of SHIELD was initially in continuity but, as the years went on, it evolved into what had to be considered an alternate universe (perhaps somewhere in the multiverse), but Agent Carter fit right in with the MCU timeline.

We see more of Dottie and her search of Peggy’s place, as well as some flashbacks to her youthful training. She does not find the stash of Cap’s blood, thankfully, but she does find photos of Stark weapons Peggy had hidden.

Chief Dooley approached Jarvis again, with a bit of an olive branch, telling him that he just wanted the truth and that he would love to hear what Howard Stark had to say.

And Agent Sousa discovered a link between the blonde in the photograph they had from a few episodes ago and Agent Carter. Sousa was not sure where to go from here.

Agent Carter S1 E4

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“The Blitzkrieg Button“

As good as episodes 1-3 of Agent Carter were, “The Blitzkrieg Button” was easily the best of the series so far. One of the big reasons was the return of Howard Stark to the show’s canvas. Nothing like a dose of lies and manipulations to spice up a secret agent show.

We also got the obligatory Stan Lee cameo. It was unexpected, but there he was, sitting right next to Howard Stark, asking for the sports section. I miss Stan.

So many things happen, including the reveal that Stark had a vial of Steve Rogers’ blood among the weapons that the SSR currently had. He manipulated Peggy into stealing it back by saying that it was a bomb that would cause a massive blackout if activated. Peggy was too quick for Howard though as she picked up the tells from him and from Jarvis (scratches his ear when he lies) and she discovered the blood inside the weapon.

The confrontation between Peggy and Howard after that was fire and the right cross was well deserved. Peggy kicked Howard to the curb and kept the blood for herself.

We also discovered that new girl at the hotel, Dottie, turned out to be someone special. I remember from the first time that Dottie came from the Black Widow program, though they have not revealed that yet. The acrobatics Dottie executed on the unexpecting Russian was epic. And it was all over a cool gun he had that she wanted.

SR Chief Dooley went to Germany to find out information about this mysterious Battle of Finow from former Nazi colonel Ernst Mueller. Dooley offered Mueller a cyanide pill to avoid the scheduled hanging that he was headed for in exchange for info. Mueller told Dooley that there was no battle and that it was just a group of mutilated bodies.

Lots of excitement heading forward. Pieces are falling into place and we have four more episodes in season one.

Agent Carter S1 E3

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“Time and Tide”

At the end of last episode, the guys at the SSR had found the bumper of the Stark car in the remains of the Roxxon plant. This set them on the trail of Howard Stark, indirectly through the path of Edwin Jarvis.

In this episode, we learn a little bit more of the past of Jarvis and the SSR attempted to have him and his wife deported. Thankfully, through some sneakiness of Peggy, Jarvis is set free.

Peggy consistently is shown as quick-thinking and intelligent. She is very much the opposite than what the others at the SSR seemed to think of her.

Peggy and Jarvis wind up finding the missing Stark tech and they report in anonymously. Peggy wanted to do it herself, but Jarvis correctly convinced her that the people she worked for would not see it as a positive. They would see it as a way of tying Peggy to Stark and questioning her motives. Still one of the best parts of this series was how Peggy, the most capable person in the room, was mistreated or disrespected by her colleagues.

There was also a cool fight scene with a guy. Peggy needed the help of Jarvis or else she would have been killed. Then she was able to use one of the Stark toys against the guy, breaking his arm. With Peggy and Jarvis out of the way, the SSR arrived and found the witness. He was in the car with Krzeminski and about to blow Peggy’s cover when another car struck them from behind. That led to a person assassinating both Krzeminski and the witness.

This was the first death of a member of the SSR that we got to see and it was quite dramatic. Peggy was hit harder than she thought.

The series continues to build its central mystery and progress every episode. Carter and Jarvis continue to be an awesome pair and the stakes continue to rise.

Agent Carter S1 E2

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“Bridge and Tunnel”

In episode two, Peggy Carter continued her attempts to prove the innocence of Howard Stark while trying to prevent her co-workers from discovering that she was working the case.

Peggy went to investigate the missing molecular nitramene bombs from the milk truck from last episode and trying to discover more about the mysterious Leviathan.

Running though the episode was clips from the “Captain America Adventure Program” which was a radio show detailing fictionalized adventures of the war hero Captain America. Poor Peggy was reduced in the show as a damsel in distress and the real Peggy kept hearing the show wherever she would go.

There was an exciting fight on the top of the milk truck that ended up off a cliff and imploding in a massive implosion. Again, it showed the relationship between Peggy and Jarvis. Not that there was ever going to be anything between the two besides friendship. It was not that sort of vibe. Jarvis is able to convince Peggy that she could not take everything on herself and that she needed to have help. He was meaning himself, but it also led Peggy to take an apartment that she turned down before because she was afraid that she brought danger to people around her.

Roxxon is included in the show as well. Roxxon has always been the evil corporation of the Marvel Universe and this would be no exception. It was awesome to see Ray Wise (Leland Palmer from Twin Peaks) make his appearance as one of the heads of Roxxon.

Agent Carter S1 E1

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“Now is not the End”

After watching the Agent Carter Marvel One-Shot for this past Saturday Shorts day, I decided that I would begin a rewatch of Agent Carter’s ABC TV show that ran for two seasons after Captain America: The First Avenger. I remember that series being a lot of fun and ahead of its time.

Peggy Carter is working at the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR) in New York City, but the other agents are anything but welcoming. One of the key sections of this series was the inclusion of how men treated women in the mid 40s and how Peggy Carter was not going to take such behavior.

Howard Stark, played in this series by Dominic Cooper, is believed to have sold some of his weapons to enemies of the USA and has become a fugitive, wanted as a traitor. Howard approached Peggy, along with his butler Edwin Jarvis (James D’Arcy), and asked her to investigate this case. He needed her to prove him innocent. Peggy decided to help him, even though helping him might be seen as her turning traitor too.

Peggy is shown as remarkably capable and she is able to retrieve one Stark bomb and disable it. However, it led to the death of her roommate. This scene and the following one of Peggy with Jarvis at the restaurant was pretty strong. Hayley Atwell is an excellent actress and can take the material to another level with her performance.

There is a great chemistry between Peggy and Jarvis, and their bickering and interactions are funny and endear us to the characters immediately. Comic fans knew of Jarvis, since he was the comic book butler for the Avengers and in the MCU is the person whom Tony Stark originally named his AI in his armor.

The show started by highlighting Peggy’s co-worker, Daniel Sousa, who had been wounded in the war and needed a crutch to move around. I have a much more positive memory of Sousa from later when he joined Agents of SHIELD and was matched up with Quake.

This introduction does a great job setting up the series and what is to come.

The Outfit

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As I was going through Peacock today looking to see if there was anything of interest that I could watch on a Sunday afternoon, I came across The Outfit, a film that I had heard good things about and that I had planned on, eventually, renting on Vudu. However, now I did not have to because the film was streaming for free on my Peacock subscription.

Mark Rylance starred as Leonard, a high brow English tailor (though he would argue that distinction. He said he was a cutter, and that a tailor only sewed on buttons) in a small shop in Chicago that was patronized by members of the Boyle crime family. Leonard would look the other way as gangster would use a drop off box in his back room as a message port and as a stash box for dirty money.

Things become more complicated one night when Richie (Dylan O’Brien), son of the crime boss Roy (Simon Russell Beale) and chief enforcer Francis (Johnny Flynn) came into the shop. Richie had been shot in the side and was bleeding. Francis forced Leonard at gunpoint to stitch Richie up with thread from the shop.

Francis told Leonard that they had been ambushed over a tape that everybody wanted, that had been recorded by a “rat” working for the FBI. Francis needed to find a device in which to play the tape, so he left Leonard to watch over the wounded Richie.

In an attempt to get out of this situation, Leonard started to play Richie and Francis against one another. This led to an evening of violence and lies.

I loved this movie. I was engrossed by the entire story and I was fascinated by the performance of Mark Rylance. He was just great as he manipulated each situation that happened next. You could feel how each second, Leonard felt on edge, but was continuing to do what he could to maintain events.

You could tell that there was more to Leonard’s story than what we were getting, but since he was showing himself to be a complex liar, you were never really sure what the truth of the moment was or how much of it was just fiction.

Leonard’s receptionist, Mable (Zoey Deutch), was involved in the story as well, bringing a new wrinkle to what Leonard was hoping to accomplish. Zoey Deutch does a great job creating a character that you care about and that you believe Leonard would go out of his way to help.

Graham Moore, who won an Oscar for Best Adaptation of The Imitation Game and was the author of one of my favorite books, The Sherlockians, had his directorial debut in this film as well as co-writing the screenplay. I found all of the shots to be very effective and all of the pieces of the story came together extremely well. This would be a solid debut in the director’s chair for anyone.

The Outfit was a tense and enthralling gangster tale, told in a different manner than most of the others. The single area of the tailor shop helped build the feeling of everything collapsing in at once and you can’t help but wonder how Leonard would get out of the situation.

4.5 stars

The Golden Compass (2007)

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Do Over: EYG Sunday Morning Revisit Week 3

I just barely remember the first time I watched The Golden Compass. It was on DVD and my slight memory was that I was bored during it. So when I saw that this movie was leaving HBO Max at the end of the month of May, I decided this would be a good film to use for week three of the Do Over.

What I found amazing upon the second viewing was that a film with as many fantastical elements and magical creatures could be as dull as The Golden Compass was.

According to IMDB: “It was no ordinary life for a young girl: living among scholars in the hallowed halls of Jordan College and tearing unsupervised through Oxford’s motley streets on mad quests for adventure. But Lyra’s greatest adventure would begin closer to home, the day she heard hushed talk of an extraordinary particle. Microscopic in size, the magical dust–discovered in the vast Arctic expanse of the North–was rumored to possess profound properties that could unite whole universes. But there were those who feared the particle and would stop at nothing to destroy it. Catapulted into the heart of a terrible struggle, Lyra was forced to seek aid from clans, ‘gyptians, and formidable armored bears. And as she journeyed into unbelievable danger, she had not the faintest clue that she alone was destined to win, or to lose, this more-than-mortal battle.“

That synopsis from IMDB just scratches the surface of the convoluted story of The Golden Compass. What a mess the story of this film was. It seemed to change every ten minutes or so, much like the main antagonist (if that is who she was) Nicole Kidman. Kidman played Mrs. Coulter and her motives changed in every other scene. The movie also starred Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, although I could understand if you forgot that he was in the movie because the movie certainly forgot that. He appeared at the beginning and was not seen again until the very end, and that was not even in person.

The young protagonist Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) showed herself to be quite a strong little girl who was an accomplished liar or manipulator. She was thrown into several situations but I never once felt that she was in any jeopardy (except the one near the end in a lab, but it was resolved in such a unlikely manner that you could hardly count that one).

I did enjoy the inclusion of Sam Elliott as Lee Scoresby, a character nearly identical to dozens of characters I have seen Sam Elliott play before, though he is such a likeable actor that you forgive the repetitive nature. The ever wonderful Ian McKellan voiced the polar bear Iorek Byrnison, who went from drunken servant to king in the space of about 30 minutes. He pledged his fealty to Lyra because she let him know where his armor was being held, despite it being a painfully apparent location.

The CGI and special effects were hit and miss. Sometimes the film looked good, but other times it looked as fake as you could imagine.

The the film just ended. It pulled a Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ending (which also had Ian McKellan in it) and the group had come together to head off on a quest. Let’s just say that this was nowhere near as satisfying as that movie was.

Prior to the abrupt ending the film pulled out about three Dues Ex Machinas in the final battle. This included the sudden appearance of Iorek Byrnison, who apparently can teleport (or else is a really sneaky gigantic armoured polar bear).

The Golden Compass was a disappointment and packed with ideas that are not executed or are so messy that you do not care by the time the film gets around to them.

Close Your Eyes (2022)

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May 14, 2022, Short 20

This one was just 3 minutes and 44 seconds long, but it did a fantastic job of scaring me and making me feel uneasy.

When musician Vincent (Vinny Balbo) finds his roommate (David Illy Bennett) standing at the front door, eyes closed with his ear up against the door, and not saying anything, he was confused. When his roommate told him that he was listening for secrets from her, Vincent was even more confused, but he did the same to see what he could hear. He heard nothing, but that did not mean that there was nothing there.

This was really solid and creepy. I was very impressed with the story and the characterization for such a short film. And then, what we see, was nightmare inducing for sure.

I thought this was really well done and I would love to see more from it. This is also found on YouTube.