Reviews

Yesterday, I went to see Lisa Frankenstein at the cinema. I had heard there were Goth music references in this movie and there are, there's a reference to The Cure, there's a Bauhaus poster in the main character's bedroom and a song by The Chameleons plays at one point in the film, which is good because movies these days don't usually reference Goth music when Goths appear and the music is a very important part of Goth subculture. However, when I watched this movie I realized I kinda didn't like it. I had noticed at the start that the pacing felt very slow and a lot of the acting and dialogue seemed quite hammy, there were also quite a few movie cliches, and cliches aren't inherently bad but this movie had a bit too much I think but perhaps that was intentional to make a movie similar to cheesy 1980s horror movies. And now I will admit that this is kind of on me but, I actually hadn't seen very many trailers of this movie, I think I seen one but I actually kinda forgot what kind of content was in it apart from the Goth references because I went in having no idea I was watching a slasher movie but even if I should've known, it still felt like the slasher stuff came out of nowhere. There was no real build-up to it, there was no progression for this main character to suddenly become murderous. Yes, she was a troubled girl with mental illness but there were no signs that she was going to become so deranged later on. There's even a heartfelt part where she tries to convince her dad that she's not insane but she becomes insane anyway, with not enough build-up or character development. Another flaw with this movie is when the first murder actually happens on screen, to her stepmother (who in this movie disapproves of Lisa in a kind of exaggerated hammy fashion), it is treated with almost no severity at all. The main character Lisa just turns to her Frankenstein boyfriend and says "Right we'll have to hide the body" and then the characters continue on as if they didn't just commit a horrific crime until the victim's daughter (Lisa's stepsister who is really nice and friendly to Lisa) discovers her mother is not answering the phone and then Lisa is all like "oh no I'm so stressed out now cuz my sister just noticed her mother is missing!" like what did you expect would happen? This whole thing kind of annoyed me since again, this was treated with no seriousness and the main characters didn't even give much of a care that they just murdered for the first time, and we had seen earlier how her stepsister was very kind and supportive of Lisa so it was quite irritating and I kind of wanted to walk out. An old couple who were also there in the cinema had walked out halfway through the movie so I assume they didn't like it either. Another thing about this movie is despite doing their homework on Goth music, the movie still paints Goths as the kind of people to be murderous psychos by having Lisa only dress outwardly Goth after she commits her first murder and then she becomes all mean and tough at school. So yeah, obviously not a fan of this movie but at least I gave it a chance. Overall, it's not awful but it's somewhere in the middle of mediocre and bad. You might like this movie if you like very cheesy slasher movies from the 80s but it's not brilliantly written.

As it has now been a decade since I discovered this show, I thought I would make a review on this episode that I find quite underrated, although I'm not certain this review will be approved on the same date I write this. The Hairy Bus to me feels much like a classic episode from the early 00s, with lots of great humour involving dialogue and a very surreal plotline. It has a classic episode feel, mixed in with some of the more modern style of writing like having Carl be the instigator for the weirdness this time, which was quite amusing as the episode showcased how he would use Meatwad for his sleazy criminal activities while disguising it as "going to the movies", sawing off converters from cars and eventually The Hairy Bus, which would lead to this episode's events. Overall, this was a really great and underrated episode, one of my favourites for how funny it was.

The worst finale to the worst season of Rick and Morty. I don't care what anyone says, Season 3 is godawful aside from a few episodes. So after the president gets Rick and Morty to sort out some creature running around the office or something, Rick and Morty get tired of the president needing their help all the time and decide to insult him behind his back which he finds out soon and the president and Rick and Morty become enemies. The rest of this plot is nothing but the president and Rick fighting, no interesting sci-fi concepts, and no reason to care. In the middle of the episode, Rick decides that Morty deserves a selfie from the president for some reason and refuses to leave the White House until it is done. Hilarious. Rick's unlikableness works in episodes like The Ricks Must be Crazy because there is an interesting plot that actually goes places and both Rick and the antagonist of that episode are both equally terrible unlikable people and you're not really supposed to like any of them. The president in this episode (while he's not so great in other episodes) is extremely likable in comparison to our annoying main protagonist, and you kinda want to see Rick get punched in the face because of it. Once again not helping is the utterly stupid plot about Rick just annoying the president for no reason. It does not evoke laughter. The subplot from this episode is about Beth worrying she is a robot and Rick, the smartest man in the universe reassures her that she is real but then asks if she's becoming self-aware which leads to her going back to Jerry and Rick being confused as to why that happened.

This episode is one of the worst to come out of season 4 due to being the most poorly written in my view, like it was just thrown in there to meet the season episode number requirement. It involves Chris Griffin going to high school for the first time but he's nervous because he's a freshman. In the car, while driving him to the school, Lois tells him not to worry about being a freshman and then when Chris gets out the car door, she hilaaaaariously yells out "freshman!" which causes Chris to get beat up. Upset by this, Chris goes to live with some jungle people. Lois is upset upon hearing this even though it's partially her own fault but it doesn't matter if funny haha jokes impact the story I guess. So the family goes to the jungle and try to get Chris back. The jungle people think the Griffin family are royalty so they get treated like kings and queens for a bit until Chris blurts out that he's a freshman and the Jungle people......get really angry about that and try to kill the Griffin family because......well I have no idea. I genuinely wonder if they didn't know how to end the episode because that is so stupid that I was just like are you serious right now? While watching. Anyhow, they get away from the Jungle people in the end and the episode ends. There's also a subplot in the episode about Peter getting a job but it is so forgettable with nothing of substance going on in it. The least it does is introduce Angela and Peter's new job for the rest of the series. Despite all my complaints, I did find a few scenes in this episode to be quite funny such as the Will Ferrell scene and Mayor West in Chris's school for literally no reason. I love it when characters just show up out of nowhere lol.

So this episode is kind of different I suppose. A talking dolphin coming to stay with the Griffins isn't something you'd usually see in Family Guy so I guess I can give them props for thinking outside of the box, but it just turns out to be another "friend seems cool to you, but everybody else dislikes him, and later you start to dislike him too" type of stories with very little to add to the table. Billy the Dolphin doesn't do much and isn't very amusing for much of the time he's on-screen. He mostly just tells fish puns, penis jokes and mentions how he's adapting by watching TV shows. If all this was the only problem with the episode, I would not be making this review though. The subplot involving Brian and Stewie in this episode is one of the absolute worst Family Guy plots I have ever seen and weighs this episode down significantly in quality. Brian takes Stewie to daycare only to find out the place is neglecting the children and putting them in serious danger. Angered, he goes out back to talk to the woman in charge but upon finding her attractive, he immediately tries to justify and ignore her actions. That is not funny and that is unfortunately what the rest of this subplot largely consists of. There is nothing else to it so why should I care? Why should I care about Brian trying to get a date with this awful woman? Why would anyone care to watch this? Stewie angrily berates Brian for his inaction but Brian does not even get any comeuppance at the end of the episode, only the abusive preschool teacher does and whilst she deserves it, Brian also deserves a punishment. Stewie doesn't even seem to remember what Brian did after the preschool teacher is arrested and the rest of the episode acts like that whole subplot was all just fun hijinks. Moral of the story: Do not make one of your main characters that we're SUPPOSED to like so unlikable and horrible and if for some reason you must, at least make sure they get consequences at the end.