Reviews

If you don't know what Minecraft is but are interested in the phenomenon, go read a wikipedia page.

If you already know what it is and you're a big fan of Minecraft, but you still want to hear other people tell a camera how great it is for a couple hours while a specific period of the development cycle of the game is documented, you will enjoy it.

The explanation of WHAT, exactly, is Minecraft, is never fully explored. In the beginning you get a 20 second bit about how you're just dropped on a map where bad things happen at night, and that's pretty much it. You know that there is some building involved but again, that's about it.

Why did someone build a mechanical computer or the USS Enterprise if the goal is just to survive? I guess there are many ways to play the game? How did the game go from survival to a lego kit? Is it the same game? Is it a different mode? How do the blocks interact with eachother? Are there different types of blocks? Are you taking them somewhere and just rearranging them at your leisure or is there an endless supply of materials? How do dynamic construction with switches and mechanisms work? Why is it so easy for very young kids to fabricate complex machines? When did the world first learn about it? Can you play it with your friends? How does that change the experience? How big is the world? How are they going to continually expand the experience?

Believe it or not, there isn't even a mention that the size of the map is basically as big as you want and is generated as you explore it. There is no real history of the game, no in depth explanation of the visual style, or game mechanics, no condensed timeline of development or anything.

The movie doesn't take 20-30 minutes to explain the game to you, so you watch it always hoping to get to the bottom of the game and it's mechanics soon, but that information never actually comes.

You get a factoid or a slightly longer sequence about the creator or the company every now and then between interviews of people saying how amazing it is, but with no context or understanding of what exactly Minecraft is, there is a point where you're just exhausted of trying to know what it is and exactly HOW IT WORKS because the movie assumes you're already a fan and is making the most effort reinforcing you for being one, while people who came to learn about it are left confused..

Sadly, it's a documentary about Minecraft for people who already know what it is and already know they like it.

This is more about the people who raced this specific year of Baja 1000 and their story outside of racing than about the race itself.

This movie is so actually not about the race that not once throughout the entire movie is there a MAP of the race, meaning a map of the course they will be taking. Ever.

It is beautiful footage of riders abstractly riding around in dust with no point of reference for the viewer as to where they are within the confines of the race.

They mention some cities but is this the beginning of the race? The mid point? The end? Where are they? Where are they going? Who's behind them? Who's in front of them? What the hell is going on? For a movie that chooses to focus on one specific year and not focus on the actual history, or historical significance of the race, there is surprisingly little precise information about what is actually going on and it's very difficult to relate to anything because it flows like a dream sequence edited by Quentin Tarantino that you have to piece back together yourself.

This movie is a collage of slow motion footage and nostalgic people talking. There is no discussion of strategy, technical matters, logistics, navigation, none of that.

If you are looking to immerse yourself in this incredible race, keep looking.

The movie is beautiful but there is little racing going on, most of it is people reminiscing about the good old days, you will not learn anything about the route they take or if the route changed at all since the 60's or anything.

It's all very abstract with patriotic sounding music and father/son or whatever tear jerking.

Well done I guess, but not really a racing documentary. It's more of a study on people or something.

Nintendo quest is not an all encompassing documentary about Nintendo, the NES, or gaming in general. The description is misleading. There have been many gaming docs, but none specifically about the history of the company Nintendo, so needless to say I was really excited.

Even after I realized that it was rather about a guy building an NES collection from scratch with a few fun facts thrown in here and there, I still kept on watching it, because I do have some old games and still buy them often at flea markets and such, so it was still right up my alley.

This movie is based on an interesting idea that somehow along the way became devoid of fun. So much that in the end I kinda felt sorry for the guy.

I have tremendous respect for his dedication and drive to succeed, however collecting should be fun, and as it is mentioned in the movie, collecting takes a long time if you're doing it right and don't have access to tens of thousands of dollars. You WILL get it done, it'll just take a few years.

The ridiculous project of building a complete NES collection from scratch in 30 days without using the internet is the driving force of Nintendo Quest. That's 678 games in total.

What started out as a dare ended up being a 90 minutes romp across north America, hunting down NES games, following a taciturn collector blowing money in retail stores and on games sold by a few private collectors. It's more or less an hour and a half episode of game chasers with more pressure, less smiles, and more actual drama.

While video games revolve around having a good time, I felt strangely sad watching Jay progressively sink into the depths of everything I hate about video game collecting as a cultural phenomenon : Display queens, overblown prices, and the underlying obsession about the rarity and value of extremely bad games.

The most disturbing thing about Nintendo Quest is that Jay doesn't seem to be particularly enjoying himself throughout his seemingly excruciating adventure. He stumbles from store to store trying to deal with the pressure of failure and trying to work a way around the cost of absolute stinkers like Stadium events and others.

It's not all bad, as the high point of the movie for me was still how Jay repeatedly says that the games he get should have a story attached to them, which is my opinion as well, it's just that those stories shouldn't come from a place of extreme pressure.

There are quite a few superb private collections displayed throughout the quest. Another high point for the movie.

If I was looking to start collecting retro games after all the hype, Nintendo Quest would've been sure to sober me up real fast about the real essence of the chase : Fun.

Still, R.I.P. Spencer, and Jay man, I hope this ridiculous ordeal didn't completely burn you out on gaming, because it sure looked like you had enough of it at the end and was ready to snap.

Wish you well.

Mister badass superstar cop workaholic with a traumatic event in his past : Check.

Bored hot housewife : Check Expendable badass partner who has no connection or communication with the metaphysical elements of the intrigue but initially seems willing to believe even though he's not exactly gifted ether-wise, whose eventual gruesome death will require some avenging : Check.

Little girl checking under bed : Check.

Scary jack in the box : Check.

Lengthy flashlight investigation of many basements : Check.

Ultra collected bad boy character who knows everything that's going on but speaks in paraboles and takes his time unravelling the story to a cop around drinks and a pool game while people are dying outside : Check. In this case, an eye opening leather jacket cig smoker priest.

Cannibalistic zombification : Check. True primary evil might make you eat people depending on The Walking Dead's last season finale ratings.

Static on the radio indicating outerwordly energy : Check.

Dead babies and general child abuse : Multiple instances, check.

Seeing things in a mirror then turning around and nothing's there : Check.

Many other police elements inspired by True Detective (lifting someone off the ground after stabbing them in the abdomen, PTSD stricken cop who has random explosions of frustration in front of his wife, explainable through traumatic crime scenes and ongoing cases) : Check Most other stuff coming from either The Conjuring or The Exorcist : Check.

"Inspired by true events" premise, when in fact only the names of the characters bear any resemblance to actual events : Check.

Main character's wife and kid gets kidnapped as a side dish to the main plot. Gives the movie a bit more running time after the main intrigue is over.

You coast through the movie checking boxes, everything is pretty much standard, the main characters starts out laughing at religion, becomes devoted Christian, his partner dies, his wife gets kidnapped, he becomes religious, wife and kid and fine, movie ends.

It sums up the movie.

That particular character is what the movie ultimately turned into. A bloated, dull and brooding mess, excused by a final plot twist that basically negates the entire movie, making you feel even more like you've waisted your time because it was all for nothing. Kind of the classic ending where the characters just wakes up in his bed and the credit roll, except this time it's not cute but overdone like the dream ending, it's just trite and offensive.

Let me tell you, no one in their right mind would conduct an "investigation" this way : Call up your friends and shoot up the town. A ridiculous method which leaves our friend to spend an alarming amount of time screaming at dead people's face for clues about the whereabouts of his daughter's killers. Not very effective for a once feared crook who retired. It feels more like a hot headed rookie trying to impress a mob boss by blowing up everything in sight and then trying to beat answers out of corpses.

And the always calm, coffee sipping policeman to walk on screen and tell our friend to "stop killing people because I'm gonna have to eventually arrest you." And walks out.

Another crucial moment here, get this : They call their friend all like "It's going down so get ready for some wild stuff" so he's like "Alright guys, let me break out my brass knuckles" and then he walks to the side of the street and punches air with his brass knuckles as if he is practicing breaking jaws while waiting for his friends to pick him up. This is a 70's comedy slapstick moment amidst a criminally dulled out rethink of taken.

This moment is when I realized that this character punching around to look tough, is the movie. The movie walks out with brass knuckles and starts punching around while waiting for the script to kick in, and when it does it's so flat that the movie stops caring, indulges in strippers and is ultimately killed by Nick Cage. This character is the movie, metaphorically.

I think that's what the movie was about, it's genius.

Everything about this movie seems like it has been designed to induce the general population in a deeper judgmental coma about sex and porn than it already is.

I can already picture bros high-fiving each other after lasting three days on a no-porn binge, like an unlikely leap of faith brought upon them by watching one of their peers stumble through a rough patch before finally hooking up with an eye-opening cougar that heals all wounds.

Point I'm making ==> As if porn itself was the wound in this case.

Porn in this movie was merely a byproduct of societal culture, as evidenced by the background shots of opening credits. Sadly, no other reference to this was made later in the movie. It's almost like JGL thought about making a movie about the state of modern sexual culture, but midway through the script just went "F*ck it, I'll just blame it on the porn" and wrapped up his movie...

This is not a movie about porn addiction, it's a movie about Jersey trash doing what they do best. Porn is just the scapegoat of the movie used to drive a skewed and lazy life lesson home in the last 5 minutes of the movie.

Scarlett's character's reaction to her boyfriend watching porn is the true problem of this movie because it is a wasted opportunity to engage two love interests into a meaningful conversation about their desires. It points yet again another accusing finger on porn when the true problem is the girl's insecurity and the guy's lack of communication skills.

How can so many talented actors come up is such an underdeveloped plot? If you want a good movie about porn addiction, watch the movie SHAME.

Elysium feels like 80's B movie writing, wrapped up in sumptuous CGI.

I'm willing to suspend my disbelief to accommodate an underdeveloped plot in order to fill the holes myself with my own imagination.

No really, I am willing to do that. I did in District 9 and it didn't make the movie any worse for me.

And then Elysium ends in an all encompassing glorious system reboots that solves every single problem at once.

Economical issues, health issues, political, logistical, religious, everything is perfect.

You flip a switch or change a line of code and every human being becomes healthy and seemingly immortal at no additional cost or anything.

Makes you wonder why the Elysium political body hasn't done it in the first place if it's so simple and miraculous. It's probably because the rich are simply evil and well, that's what evil does.

They don't need to explain why they had the means to make humanity perfect in a minute but chose not to proceed with it because that's what true evil really is. Like that kid at the daycare that has all the Hot Wheels and doesn't want to share them with his fellow toddlers because he just doesn't feel like it.

One could argue that in our present time, the same concept exists in that humanity is grossly unbalanced and if we ended up "rebooting our system", then every earth citizen would be happy.

The list of reasons that would explain why this can't be done smoothly defies imagination, but in Elysium, we are driven to believe that through it's cinematographic metaphor, the entire structure of humanity as we know it is just an illusion.

That if a similar turn would take place on earth, everything would suddenly turn out awesome.

There would be no economic, political or especially religious tension among the suddenly healthy humans left on earth.

I really wanna see a sequel just for a good laugh.

Elysium 2 : where the earth ends up worse than the beginning of the original movie because overpopulation reaches an unprecedented scale, and humanity reverts to it's primal roots of god worshipping warfare and it's back to square one.

Really surprised by this movie.

We're the Millers is riding along the very fine line between "not enough" and "too much". In one word : It's a perfectly balanced comedy with great pacing and kind of a road movie flair to it.

Jennifer Aniston is one of my top 5 comedic actress and this movie just makes me even more of a fan of hers. This girl's experience with Friends has shaped her up into a full fledged laugh factory in every comedy she is in.

The humour is crude and sometimes even a little sick, but it's delivered in such a way that the movie isn't trying too hard to push the jokes down your throat. The movie and the writing are confident enough to mix them all up and throw them at you, knowing you will laugh and it's refreshing to watch actors have fun with a good script instead of waiting for an obnoxious comedy movie to just "do it's thing and move on", if that makes sense.

We're the Millers is a clever movie were everything feels just right, organic, and paced perfectly. I highly recommend it.

Season 1 was gritty and paranoid. I loved it.

Operatives did deviate from their order from time to time but it always stayed within the boundaries of enough realism to make me want to come back for more.

Season 2 is kind of a different animal. The stereotypes are through the roof and there's a point where it just doesn't seem to matter what the story is. Orla O'Rourke's character is just an excuse to parade a naked woman in front of a camera. She sleeps with 2 different men within the scope of a single episode, and 50% of her screen time is spent naked. Whenever she isn't naked in a particular scene, she simply looks like she'd rather be when the camera is on her. She is nothing more than a horny groupie and a bait for Scott to lose his pants once again. Actually, Scott can't keep his pants on for a whole episode, and curiously, every time he has sex with a woman, she dies shortly after.

I'm not through with season 2 yet but if season 3 goes further in this direction, I can't see myself watching this show anymore.

I feel like I have to write this review now while I still remember the excellence of season 1.

Not sure why this movie had such incredibly low ratings.

Granted, I saw the three teenagers version and thought it was the weakest piece of the entire movie. I wish I had seen the one with Quaid and Kinnear, actually.

I hate to say that this movie is misunderstood, but I see no other way to put it.

I also don't see how the shock factor was too high and turned people off because by movie history standards, we have seen much worse in the disturbing department.

So I'm left to think that reviewers were expecting something they didn't get.

Movie 43 is closer to a movie like Holy Motors in which the completely abstract approach to the various parts of the movie correlate to a package that is either appealing or not.

Consequently, trying to explain why it appeals to you or not is futile considering how completely over-the-top most of the parts turn out to be.

It's also why it is most hilarious to see the various critics and reviewers pointing out the type of humour and how it was repulsive to them, while not really talking about the actual movie itself. It was interesting to see how some of the actors carried the various sketches on their shoulders. I even thought Emma Stone's bit was a pretty fine piece of comedic acting, actually.

Why it was funny for people to see Cameron Diaz smear semen in her hair and unfunny to see Hugh Jackman going on a date with a scrotum attached to his chin is puzzling, to say the least.

It reminded me of Forehead Tittaes with William Fichtner and Marion Cotillard which gathered a surprising 6.6 rating despite being about women walking around with breasts protruding from their heads.

I wasn't exactly amused by every sketch in the movie either, but all of the sketches had something memorable in them.

While not necessarily that funny, the iBabe part was a witty parody of how an entire board of supposedly brilliant product designers and marketers can sometimes spend so much time and money coming out with a terrible consumer product. People pointed out the naked girl aspect of it because they were visibly repulsed by the sketches preceding it, but as a standalone short film, this would have gotten above average reviews.

Same with the Homeschooled part which was completely disturbing and cringe worthy, but at the same time still relevant as a depraved parody of americanized parenthood.

People who are reading this review will raise eyebrows, thinking that I'm trying to dig deep to defend a crap movie by reaching for the meanings of abstract sketches that go out of their way not to have any, but that would be equal to saying Movie 43 is the worst film ever made strictly based on the puerile humour in it and leaving everything else out. They aren't necessarily wrong, but I think the overwhelming majority of scorching reviews on this movie are grossly miss focused.

It goes to demonstrate that no matter how people say they have evolved and are ready for anything, they visibly are still not willing to consider things on more than one angle.

While this movie is nowhere near as bad as the ratings make it out to be, it's no Godfather.

It will still contribute to inspire other movies despite the negativity surrounding it and I wouldn't be surprised to see Movies 43's influence in future films based on abstraction.

Movie 43 is the comedic and non-pompous equivalent to Holy Motors. This will floor a lot of people, but it isn't that far from the truth when you clear your mind, take a step back and really think about it for what it is : A collection of abstract shorts, tied together by, and completely outshining a really underdeveloped and crappy main plot.

I think that in future years, Movie 43 will probably grow to be some kind of cult classic just for the novelty alone of seeing so many huge stars so far out of their element.