Fish and Cherries Productions

The Judge is in no way a feel-good movie. In fact, a lot of it is depressing as fuck. But beneath all the turmoil is a story about dealing with your own past and not letting it govern or ruin your future. Robert Downey Jr. does a really good job at playing a truly miserable man who hides behind a veil of snark and wit. Anyone who has had difficulty with one or more of their parents or tried to distance themselves from their roots and hometown will be able to relate to him, even if they occasionally find his actions a bit slimy. With its great acting, dialogue, and characters, you should really give this movie the time of day.

Annabelle took the creepiness of The Conjuring and takes it up to eleven. Apart from the jump scares and creepy imagery, this film introduces a huge amount of psychological horror that I don’t think was as prominent in the first film. MILD SPOILER WARNING FOR THE NEXT SENTENCE!! I’m not used to actually seeing the monster in horror films like these, but here it was really effective due to the creepy atmosphere and the demon’s design. SPOILER OVER!! Gone also are the unfortunate implications that were present in The Conjuring (see my Reel Snippet on that for details), which is a huge relief because I thought they were going down a similar route. Thankfully, I was wrong.

However, for every two steps forward, there’s a noticeable step back. The two main characters are the blandest pieces of wonderbread I’ve ever seen in a horror movie. Nothing about them or their lives interested me and the only reason I was invested with them was because they were being haunted. On top of that, the technical aspects of the spirit hunting are gone (again, see me review of The Conjuring) and replaced with the arbitrary skepticism from one of the characters when they simply refuse to believe there’s something supernatural and they just attribute it to the other person being mentally ill or seeking attention and FOR THE LOVE OF CRAP, CAN WE JUST LET THAT HORROR TROPE DIE?! It always comes off like the writers ran out of ideas and needed something to fill in the running time rather than trying to be clever. These two things were pretty serious gripes for me and I was very close to writing this movie off in the beginning, but the terror was so intense that it swept away the majority of my issues. I guess if those faults are harsh deal-breakers for you, you probably won’t enjoy this as much. But I think the horror more than makes up for it.

Seriously, though, who would want to buy a doll that creepy to begin with?

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.

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.

The Maze Runner was certainly engaging, but that doesn’t necessarily make it good. There’s the general “been there, done that” vibe felt throughout the movie, but it would have at least been salvageable if the characters had any, well, character. None of them really have any personality except for the stock ones of the protagonist, the guy mired in tradition, and the tagalong kid. Everyone else feels really flat and most don’t have clear motivations at all. The sole girl in the film was a complete nonentity and had no purpose whatsoever. I’m not going to harp on about the failure of the Bechdel Test because I consider that a very weak application of feminism and not really telling of any real progressiveness, but the fact that there are no other women in the film (with no explanation for why that is) just makes me scratch my head.

In fact, a lot of stuff isn’t explained well. Things are just thrown at you and it’s a flip of the coin whether you’ll get answers in this film or the next. There’s one part where the main character stumbles upon a strange wooden totem deep in the forest with the name George on it that was surrounded by bones, human and possibly otherwise. The film offered no explanation what it was and the way it was presented made it feel like it was going to pay off later. As such, I assumed that George was a boy brought into this mysterious commune early on, but then became a mad cannibal and forced the others to worship him as a god before the current leader assembled a band to overthrow and possibly kill him. And I’m not convinced that it wouldn’t have made a better movie.

The visuals are good, the twist at the end is nifty (that is, before something completely pointless and head-scratching happens), and I appreciate that the movie tried to diversify the surviving cast, but it brings absolutely nothing new to the table and leaves me with a resounding feeling of “meh.” While they were able to make an engaging scenario, they unfortunately weren’t able to make me give a crap.

Kill Bill Volume 2 kicked the simplicity right out of the plot near the end and delivered a satisfying and full circle conclusion. I want to keep this short because I don’t want to spoil anything, but suffice to say, the ending tied everything set up in this and the last movie together perfectly. By far, though, the standout moments came down to the crotchety old martial arts instructor played by Gordon Liu, Pai Mei. He owns every single scene he’s in. But really, this kicked the whole affair from being passable to a truly great experience. I really wish that I had waited until viewing this and then done both of them in one review because of that. But yeah, check it out, have a movie night, and bust out the popcorn.

Kill Bill Volume 1 is a movie that really wants to be remembered with its stylized action, vivid colors, and other odd quirks. It succeeds, but I don’t know if that’s the same as it being great. First and foremost, this film is a gender-flipped action movie as well as a straightforward revenge plot, so that will definitely contribute to whether you’ll enjoy it or not. I feel like a lot of people will get swept up in the action, but for me, my brain kept trying to analyze the visual quirks on screen, ranging from a very obvious castration metaphor to a very bizarre fountain juxtaposed with the final fight scene that I couldn’t decipher at all. The movie itself is structured like a comic book collection with the aforementioned vivid colors, the stylized gore, the breaking up of the story into five chapters that draw you in, and a huge cliffhanger at the end that will make you want to pick up the next volume, among other things. The characters are not complex by any means, though they’re not supposed to be. It’s just confusing when the movie is more complex than they are, shifting through genres and styles from action to drama to anime to exploitation, taking on a very different look with each one and I’m just sitting here, scratching my head and wondering what Tarantino was going for, other than to show off that he went to film school. Giving a recommendation is pointless because I’m the one late to the party here. Suffice to say, it’s probably something I’ll watch again for the experience alone and it does make me want to see the second volume. Speaking of…

Boyhood perfectly encapsulates the slice of life genre, as this is a look at Ethan’s dysfunctional boyhood and adolescent life (with excellent use of events and media of the years to provide the time markers). None of the character are one hundred percent perfect and at the end, you wonder how much, if any, they’ve truly changed. But that’s life. On another note, a lot of the comedy (perhaps all of it) is cringe comedy or awkward comedy, like you laugh, but feel uncomfortable for doing so. It’s just as well, as very little in Ethan’s life is comfortable. From abusive stepfathers to uncomfortable friend situations, Ethan goes through a lot and throughout the film, you notice that he doesn’t assert himself a lot. People tend to pressure him into decisions or make them for him. You think this is going to pay off at the end in some big speech or confrontation, but it doesn’t. In fact, not many of the things brought up in the movie have a payoff later. But again, that’s life and in a weird, horrible way, it’s beautiful. And that’s what keeps you going through the movie, the bits of beauty throughout this young man’s life. Fair warning, though, there may be a few trigger images and scenarios in there, so some people should approach with caution. On another note, I would just like to address what a miracle it was that they started filming this boy at a young age and he happened to grow up to have enough similarities to Ethan Hawke that he could conceivably be his son. The only flaw some people might see is that the film is very long, clocking it somewhere over three and a half hours, but I didn’t mind in the slightest. Boyhood may turn out to be the best movie of 2014 by years end. Some people may find some of the lines pretentious, but of all the things said in this movie, someone will find some philosophy or life lesson that resonates with them. And that’s life.