Fish and Cherries Productions

The Book of Life was a huge slog to get through. Granted, the animation was absolutely beautiful, especially in the Land of the Dead segments, and definitely deserves merits in its own right. But the script is a complete wash with clichés, arbitrariness, and inconsistencies abound. Also baffling was the use of contemporary music with a mariachi twist, when traditional Mexican music or more original songs would have been better. On top of that, rapper Ice Cube as the great spirit known as The Candlemaker was a huge misstep. He was so out of place and every scene he was speaking in made me cringe.

Perhaps the biggest flaw is how the film almost never has any quiet moments. There’s constant dialogue, noise, and unnecessary narration, like the film is afraid the audience would get bored if it didn’t. The key element of cinema is to show, don’t tell, and this film fails on that front pretty hard. It would have been better if they had allowed things to be delivered through visuals and teach kids to recognize that early in life. Children are smarter than we give them credit for and need to be treated with respect. You just can’t do that when the kids aren’t even allowed a moment to process things or figure things out for themselves. However, a few people I know seem to like it despite its flaws, so maybe I should leave this up to you guys. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend this unless you’re an animation enthusiast or curious about the cultural aspects, and even then I would wait for the rental.

When I was still passionate about Ronin’s Rants, I was going to widen my scope from TV to include internet original content, my reasoning being that the internet is becoming a new form of art and media distribution. From there, I would eventually do a video critiquing Anita Sarkeesian; it’s not because I disagree with what she stands for in the long run, but because she represents a brand of feminism that, on the whole, gives the movement a bad name. The fact that she has made huge errors in her research certainly makes things worse. Today, however, even if I were still doing the show, I would officially put that idea in the bin forever, due to recent disturbing events.

There exists a game developer named Brianna Wu, who developed a relatively unheard of but well-received mobile game called Revolution 60. Recently, she has fled her home with her husband after a slew of death threats were launched at her on Twitter, included one that posted her home address. This would normally be just horrible, but the fact that has happened to other women in the gaming community recently turns this into something downright disgusting. Wu now joins Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian herself in a group of women that has undergone the same harassment and left their home for fear of safety. I don’t know how many others there are, but here’s how I look at it: once is a case of misanthropic asshole, twice is a disturbing fluke, but three times is a trend, one that I had seriously hoped we as a people had grown above by now.

Earlier in the year, in the wake of Zoe Quinn’s Depression Quest, there came to light a post from one of her jilted ex-boyfriends. He claimed that Zoe had been cheating on him with other people, including a game journalist covering the game. Suddenly, accusations were flying about how Zoe slept with the journalist to get a good review, bringing up questions about journalistic integrity and nepotism in the gaming community. Firefly alumni Adam Baldwin discussed the matter and coined it #GamerGate. Backlash ensued, but there were two strange things about it. First off, said journalist was not reviewing the game, but simply mentioned it, so any existing bias would be minimal. Second, it was Zoe who received the majority of the backlash, not the journalist boyfriend.

Since then, the whole thing has turned into a shitstorm and became sort of a haven for a lot of the more vitriolic attackers. Recently, something even more disturbing has come to light. Apparently, the post that incited #GamerGate, made by the ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni, was actually spiced up to add fuel to the fire, meaning the inciting incident of the movement’s existence was based on a spin story. In short #GamerGate is the video game equivalent of FOX News or the Tea Party, an organization/movement spawned from hype and lies that they have bought into, full stop.

At this point, the hashtag #StopGamerGate2014 is in full swing, supported by countless game developers, game studios like Naughty Dog, and celebrities like Seth Rogen. Cracked even did an article about how #GamerGate just makes the human race look bad. #GamerGate is now destined to forever live in infamy. Whatever goal they were trying to accomplish has been obliterated by the people that make threats while invoking their name.

Let’s pretend for a moment that feminists are the rage-filled bags of hot air that their detractors say they are. They still would not deserve attacks against their privacy and threats against their lives. Wu and Quinn weren’t even championing a feminist cause like Sarkeesian was. They were simply creating games they felt passionate about and apparently that was enough to piss people off. The pretense is gone. These are attacks fueled by misogyny. And I’m not talking about the dollar-store kind of misogyny that Frank Miller or the remake of The Wicker Man pedal out, I’m talking about misogyny in its original definition: “dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.”

To bring it back home, I will never be Anita Sarkeesian’s biggest fan. I find the flaws in her research astounding, her unwillingness to give credit to the people she takes footage and art from insulting, what she thinks passes for anti-feminism at times head-slapping, and I just find her an all-around terrible feminist. But I will still not go forward with my critique video of her, even if Ronin’s Rants comes back to life. Why? Because I refuse to let the points in that video become ammo for the people launching these sick attacks. I am not willing to let my name be associated with these people or my words be repurposed by them to justify their death threats. Some people may say that I don’t have control of that, but I disagree. This is the internet, where the interaction between creator and audience has never been closer. If Anita and I have a face-to-face confrontation, I will tell her these things myself so that there is no miscommunication about it. But I will not allow myself to give power to the hateful aggressors in this hateful witch-hunt.

The Conjuring may have been one of the tamer horror movies, but it was still creepy with a capitol C. Rather than relying on cheap gore and deaths about characters we didn’t care about in the first place, it relies on a really disturbing atmosphere with some pretty frightening visuals. I also appreciate the fact that the film isn’t held back by a character’s arbitrary skepticism and instead just let most of the characters believe that, yes, there is a demonic presence haunting them. Plus, I really liked the almost scientific way that the ghost searching was executed; it was very methodical and gave the demonologists a lot of credence. However, there is one huge strike against the movie: the villain is portrayed as a woman from the era of the Salem Witch Trials and the movie states that witches achieve their power by invoking Satan, which is total bullshit. My other problem is with the characters, mainly that there’s too many of them thrown at us in such a short time. They’re not given enough focus and, as such, don’t leave much of an impression. Barring that, the film is enjoyably creepy, even if that one huge strike is pretty unforgivable. I rate Paranormal Activity and Insidious 2 higher, but that doesn’t make this any less of an experience.

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks is a huge step up from its predecessor. While the first Equestria Girls was decent, it stumbled under things like squeezing in unnecessary subplots and a pointless love interest. Not so with this sequel. While the love interest still lacks a point, he mostly stays on the sidelines. But the plot is a lot more centralized and streamlined without any extraneous subplots in the way. It also does a great job integrating the songs into the story, the plot focusing on a musical competition at the high school and thus justifying all of the songs. But the best part about this movie is that it focuses on Sunset Shimmer, the previous film’s antagonist, and her quest for redemption and acceptance. I have to say that this side of Sunset Shimmer is far more interesting and dynamic than the stereotypical mean girl side from before. The ending itself deserves mention, as it features an epic display of visuals and emotional impact, which was much better than the abrupt and head-scratching climax of the last film. As you can probably tell, the creators learned from their mistakes and turned out a great product. I know it’s a reviewer’s sin to make this pun, but Rainbow Rocks rocks.

Sharknado was ridiculously bad in every way and I think that was the intention all along. Sci-Fi Channel original movies (I refuse to call it the “Syfy Channel”) have a notorious reputation for being terrible, as do movies made by The Asylum. But before Sharknado, neither of them produced anything that became such a huge cult phenomenon. I think what sets this apart is the fact that the makers knew how stupid the concept was and exploited the crap out of it. This whole movie feels like someone was recording what George W. Bush was saying in his sleep. “Zzzzzzz… Al Qaeda’s gonna attack L.A. by putting sharks in tornados… we need to BOMB those tornados, Dick… zzzzzzzz…” Everything about this film is just ridiculous. The CGI is laughable, the dialogue and plot are jokes, and the acting quality is divided into three camps: barely trying, bad, and Tara Reid. But I was laughing the whole time and, after seeing the panel for the sequel at Comic Con, I know that was their intention, so can it really be called a bad movie? For bad movie connoisseurs, I would say that it’s not as quotable as The Room, but it’s also not as painful as Birdemic: Shock and Terror. You could just fast-forward to the memorably bad scenes at the end, but it’s much better if you do a slow build.