Reviews

I was SO excited for this show. Although I've only read one Stephen King book ("The Shining"), I highly respect him as an author. I think that he is, even today, really ballsy when it comes to the content and themes that are in his books (I'm specifically talking about books like "The Outsider" and "It"). However, "Castle Rock" is not an adaptation. It is instead an original story set in the canon of King's books.

This show sounded like it would be freaking awesome. However, I was less than impressed with the 8 episodes that I watched (out of 10, so don't judge me for not watching enough. I'm not like one of those people who gave "Iron Fist" bad reviews just because they watched and hated the first episode.)

PROS:

• The performances were (mostly) really good. I liked that this show actually had actors that were in previous King movie adaptations. Bill Skarsgard and Chosen Jacobs were both in 2017's "It" and will star in 2019's "It: Chapter Two"; Sissy Spacek had also appeared in Brian DePalma's adaptation of "Carrie". I really liked that performances from Sissy Spacek (no surprise there), Scott Glenn, Melanie Lynskey, Bill Skarsgard, and (mostly) Andre Holland. (Also, Jane Levy was in this show. That was tacked on, but so was she. Which isn't a bad thing; I really like Jane Levy.)
• This show did take its time to unravel its events, which is normally fine. However, this does lead to a big flaw.
• My biggest pro was the entire seventh episode of the series. This episode is absolutely FLAWLESS and is the reason why my rating for this first season was originally an 8/10 (at the time of writing this review, it is at a 5/10). I loved the way that Alzheimer's was depicted in this episode. Sissy Spacek was INCREDIBLE. And it really packed an emotional punch, especially at the end of the episode.

CONS:

• THIS IS JUST A NITPICK BUT... Holland did a good job acting, but there were moments where it was hard to take him seriously. He tends to look like he's trying to frown, and it looks really silly. I can't tell if that's just the way his face looks or if he's just messing with the director. Either way, it really threw me off.
• The show takes WAY too long to unravel its mysteries and events, and I ended up asking more and more questions, but didn't end up getting too many answers. Note that I watched MOST of this season, and I still wasn't very satisfied with the answers that I got.
• I will admit this. I have not seen the last two episodes of the show. However, I have heard from many people that the season's ending was very disappointing. So I will hop on that bandwagon in this mostly decent review.
• Also, the twist brought into those last two episodes just made the show SO convoluted. There was a twist about Skarsgard's character that is introduced in episode 9. However, the first 8 episodes make no damn sense in retrospect. They just completely ruined the entire continuity of the show just so it could subvert audience's expectations about the character.

Overall, this show was extremely disappointing. However, I do hope that season 2 will do a better job with its pacing.

This review is going to be short and simple.

Adam Johnston is one of the best movie critics on YouTube.

And I'm giving this one a 1 out of 10.

"The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series" is one of my favorite games of all time. It is one of the most emotional games that I have ever played. "The Walking Dead: Season Two" was about on par with the original. It isn't really as memorable as the first, but that was improved by a great antagonist and some truly emotional scenes.

Unfortunately, "The Walking Dead: A New Frontier" lacks the emotion that made me love the first two games so much.

PROS:

• The protagonist Javier is an interesting character, and I was pretty invested in his story arc. He wasn't just some moron who spends the whole game cowering. Instead, he was a very dependable character in the game.
• The game attempts to be as emotional as the first two. It doesn't succeed, but it at least tries.

CONS:

• 8 year-old Clementine was the emotional focus and moral core of the first game. After the death of the first game's protagonist, Clementine (now 11) becomes the main character. The end of the Season Two left me craving to play as Clementine again. However, she's moved to a secondary character, which was very disappointing, despite the fact that Javier is still interesting to play as.
• Telltale made a bold move when making the end of the second game. While the first game had only two different endings, Season Two had FIVE. They were all incredibly different and seemed to shape the events of the next game. However, Telltale decided to ultimately not care about the endings of the previous game. In the end of Season Two, you have to choose between killing Jane or Kenny (or both); then you have to decide to either go with them or survive on your own. Also, there is a certain choice that has to be made in Kenny's ending. When Clementine, AJ, and Kenny make it to Wellington, they're told that only the kids (Clementine and AJ) are allowed in. You have to decide to take refuge in Wellington or traverse the harsh wastelands with Kenny.

Instead of addressing any of this, the beginning of Clementine's story in "A New Frontier" shows Kenny or Jane (if either were alive at the end of Season Two) getting unceremoniously killed. This felt extremely cheap, and I wish that Telltale actually decided to address these endings further.

• This game is significantly shorter than the first two games. The first game was 28 hours long, while Season Two was 23. This game is only 5 hours long.

Overall, I do recommend this game, but only so that you can get to "The Walking Dead: The Final Season".

If I reviewed this film back in 2014, I would have probably given it a 9/10. However, now I've started to question some of the things about the film that just didn't really work for me.

Christopher Nolan is considered one of the best directors working today, and I can attest to that. He reinvented Batman for the modern audience with "The Dark Knight Trilogy" (after those crappy Joel Schumacher movies), and is even more famous for the thrillers "Memento" and "Inception". Nolan is a director known for making most of his movies think-pieces. With the exception of "The Dark Knight Trilogy", his movies aren't straightforward, especially not "Memento". In fact, they are quite complex. "Interstellar" tries to be, but sometimes, it just feels silly.

PROS:

• As usual, Christopher Nolan knows how to make a well made movie. While most directors tend to use computer generated visuals whenever they get the chance, Nolan tries to go for using practical effects as often as he can. And even when he does use CG, it doesn't look distractingly fake.
• The cast in this film was great. Matthew McConaughey, Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, and even child actor Mackenzie Foy were all great in their roles. There were some good performances from other actors (Timothee Chalamet, John Lithgow, Casey Affleck), but their roles were quite insignificant.

-A large majority of the movie (specifically the first 2 hours 15 minutes) were absolutely great. It really worked as a dramatic sci-fi epic. I feel that if the movie was half an hour shorter, I would have given this movie a 9 (or maybe even a 10) out of 10.

• Parts of the last half an hour (specifically the more heavily scientific elements) were done well. The first three times I watched "Interstellar", this part completely lost me. However, after watching a brief explanation by Neil DeGrasse Tyson (I was THAT desperate to understand this movie), it made a lot of sense.
• A large part of this movie is McConaughey's relationship with his characters daughter, played by Mackenzie Foy (as a child), Jessica Chastain (as an adult), and Ellen Burstyn (in her final minutes before she dies). The performances of McCounaghey and Foy really made their relationship feel real, and this even brought some scenes of emotion. I'm specifically referring to two scenes.

The first is when McConaughey tells Foy that he has to leave, but also that he doesn't know when he's coming back. He even states that she may be as old as he is at this moment by the time he comes back (that's kind of a harsh thing to say to your daughter). Their acting really evoked a lot of emotion as it was evident that he didn't want to leave, but did so to be able to save her. The second is a scene where he is watching video messages in his ship that were sent from his family. After an incident on a planet with harshly different relativity than Earth, McConaughey discovers that 27 years had passed on Earth. He watches messages on the ship and essentially watches his children grow up on a TV screen. The whole scene, McConaughey is weeping as he discovers these important events and regrets that he wasn't there to witness them.

• I absolutely loved Hans Zimmer's score. It was absolutely spectacular. Some have joked that this film's score sounded like Hans Zimmer fell asleep on his organ, but I still felt that it was a mesmerizing soundtrack to a very interesting science fiction film.

CONS (spoilers):

• The film's last moments didn't work for me. They felt really cheesy. The main plot of the film involves trying to find habitable planets to move humans to. Hathaway wants to go to a certain planet, but partly because her boyfriend is researching it. In this scene, she says that love is the only thing that can go throughout space. To be honest, this felt like a slightly touching scene.

Then I realized that this seemingly insignificant line was actually a big plot point. I won't go too deep into this, but I didn't really appreciate that.

• Finally, I felt that the film dragged on in the final moments. Granted, one could say the same about "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (which I gave a 10 out of 10), but all of those moments actually felt necessary; also that was an adaptation of a book, while "Interstellar" was an original idea.

Overall, I do recommend this film. But this is NOT Christopher Nolan's magnum opus that I originally viewed this film as.

This movie is a trashfire. It does have some good elements, but it was overall a steaming pile of crap that was given no thought before being released in theatres.

PROS: When I first heard that Ben Affleck was cast as Batman, I knew that this movie was going to suck. However, Affleck was actually one of the best parts of this movie. He kicked so much ass, and I loved seeing him onscreen as both Bruce Wayne and Batman. As Bruce, he was cocky and charismatic, but as Batman... well, he beat the crap out of people (and I'm pretty sure he killed some guys, but I'll get into that later). Gal Gadot had almost nothing to do in this film, but I did enjoy seeing her as Wonder Woman. She was really awesome. She wasn't in the movie a whole lot, so there isn't much to talk about. However, I think she'll shine a light on the DCEU. I also really liked Jeremy Irons as Alfred.

CONS: Who told Jesse Eisenberg that the villain needed to be a Mickey Mouse impersonator? I personally love Eisenberg, but his performance as Lex Luthor was absolutely awful. Luthor has always been a serious character throughout the previous films, but in this, he's a cartoony villain with no richness in his character or his portrayal. Amy Adams really tries to be good as Lois Lane, but the screenwriters never give her anything to do in this movie. I'm not trying to be sexist, but she was a useless character and she didn't add anything to this movie. Also, I think that the plot is just really muddled up and convoluted. So many things just don't add up. There are even elements of Lex Luthor's plan that are so premeditated that it makes you wonder how he knew that these events would occur. Batman's ethics also kinda confuse me in this movie. Everybody knows that Batman tries not to kill people. But in this movie, it's pretty obvious that he's killing people (considering that there's a rated-R cut with more blood and gore in Batman's fight scenes). I'm actually okay with that, but my gripe is with Alfred, who's always been Bruce's moral compass, not even acknowledging this. This confuses me, unless Batman has always been killing people. I don't know, so this isn't really that big of a gripe. I also felt that this movie pulled out of doing something bold. In Superman's fight with Doomsday, he gets stabbed with Kryptonite and killed. This actually shocked me. I waited a while until the movie was almost over and I realized that they actually killed Superman. This was a really bold move, and I was surprised that the DCEU did that in their second movie. But then, the last shot shows Superman's grave, with dirt starting to float around it, indicating that he was still alive. Honestly, I felt that this was really cheap and stupid. Finally, the "Martha" scene. Who the hell said that this was a good idea? Seriously, this is just an awful scene. For those of you who don't know what happens, Batman is about to kill Superman, but then the latter says "Save Martha". This is because Martha Kent (Supe's "mom") is in danger, but Batman flips out because that was HIS mom's name (who is obviously dead, because Batman). After this, Batman actually stops trying to kill Superman and they almost become friends. This is one of the dumbest scenes in movie history, and I still can't believe that this made it into the actual movie.

Overall, BVS is a pile of crap that had its enjoyable moments, but was ultimately buried by stupidity.

"Black Mirror" has had many great episodes, but this is my favorite by far.

In this episode, people have implants called "grains", which they use to go through their memories. Liam (Toby Kebbel) starts to spiral into madness when he starts to suspect that his wife hasn't been faithful.

Kebbel's performance is great, and you can really buy him as a concerned and loving husband who feels betrayed.

Also, the ending is so heartbreakingly ambiguous. It is revealed that Liam's wife had slept with another man, and that her child wasn't even with Liam. The end credits shows Liam taking a razor and trying to cut the "grain" out of his head. As this happens, he sees all the memories of his wife. The screen cuts to black before we find out whether or not Liam survived.

This is possibly the best episode of the entire season.

Right off the bat, I'm just going to say it: this movie isn't terrible. It's fairly watchable and intriguing. Unfortunately, the intrigue leads absolutely nowhere.

First, I'll talk about the things that I did enjoy. The performances were fairly good. Nobody really stood out to me, except for maybe Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Another thing is that this is a very good looking movie. Lastly, I was fairly intrigued by this movie.

However, this movie had some big problems.

The first thing that I will bring up is the plot. There were some creepy and interesting things that happened throughout the movie, but they are never explained; even worse, it doesn't even seem like the characters really care for an explanation. For example, the character Mundy gets his arm sucked into a wall. When he manages to pull it out, his hand is gone; it's not like it has been amputated, but more like it was never there in the first place. Later, the hand shows up and is revealed to be sentient, and is even able to write stuff down. As weird and cool as this is, it's never explained how this is possible. The writing is so lazy that it doesn't even bother to explain these things. I think that the big problem was that this movies wasn't supposed to be a "Cloverfield" movie in the first place. It was originally a movie called "God Particle", which Abrams liked and added to the universe. It was since delayed multiple times until it was bought by Netflix and released on Super Bowl Sunday.

Another problem is the connection to the "Cloverfield" franchise. As interesting as it is, it also feels pretty lazy. The plot device is that an accident with a particle accelerator opens up a hole in space and time, which causes multiple different universes to weave themselves into others. For example, this is probably how the Cloverfield monster appeared in the first film, and how the aliens appeared in "10 Cloverfield Lane". But this basically means that you can have pretty much anything in the franchise now. For all we know, there could even be a movie about Mundy's hand ("The Cloverfield Amputated Limb" is a really catchy title) or Nazi zombies. Oh wait, the latter is actually being made into the fourth "Cloverfield" movie.

As a fan of the franchise, this was disappointing. I was expecting a great movie, and instead, I got a sinker. I really hope that the franchise is able to pick itself back up after this film.

(P.S. The giant Clover at the end of the film is just a big "SCREW CONTINUITY" to the fans)