#all the bettermans were great

[mazinwraith]

So here’s how I’m imagining some of the next SRW’s connections if my predictions end up being correct. (They probably wont.)

Getter Robo Devolution will connect with Getter Robo Arc and Gridman/Dynazenon. Both for very obvious reasons. And some minor connections with ULTRAMAN. Probably feeling like they’re somehow related but don’t actually know how.

Ryoma getting thrown for a loop when he meets a certain someone is honestly going to be pretty funny. Benkei and Hayato giving him crap will also be great.

I can imagine Gridman and the Neon Genesis students will be well aware of Devolution Getter and it’s enemies. Likely having fought some at some point before the plot starts. (Their show and the game)

For Getter Robo Arc I’m imagining it’s main connections will be with Evangelion, Mazinger Z, Mobile Suit Gundam, and GaoGaiGar Vs. Betterman. Evangelion because Takuma could become a big brother figure for Shinji. Especially in 3.0+1.0. Both having fathers connected to machines they were ultimately destined to pilot into battle against forces from beyond Earth. A pilot from both sides being a “double agent” of sorts but actually befriends the main protagonist. Both machines being tied to unspeakable horrors beyond human comprehension. Also moms are deceased. It works pretty damn well.

Arc stops a berserk Eva during it’s debut battle and also bring back the “Getter Robo terrifies angels and Evangelions” since Getters at this point in the story are horrifying. And if the cast learns about Emperor, things will get bad from the fear and paranoia they will all feel. And also having Shin Getter Robo Tarak to call back to Alpha’s scene where a berserk Eva01 is cowering in a corner when Shin Getter Robo shows up.

The Mazinger and Gundam connections are easy as they are more for the SRW traditions than actual plot for respective stories. Koji, Tetsuya, and Amuro want to be there for Ryoma’s son. Since he isn’t with them anymore. They want to help the new generation by training all the future getter pilots. And as such Ichinanas and mass produced Federation Mobile Suits will probably back up the Getter Robo D2’s against the bugs.

Another minor detail is having them be there participating in the war from Getter Robo Go. Just some throw away lines but show that they still helped pre game plot.

At this point it would be an after story or mid story for Mazinger Z Infinity. Before Tetsuya is captured if mid story.

As for GaoGaiGar, it’s only minor but it’s more symbolic for the next generation as Mamoru and Kaido would be peers with the Arc team. That could fit an overall theme of the game if they include more next generation type stories. Another thing is having the Getter Emperor attacking 000 as well while in space. All it’s summons trying to destroy the Emperor super robot and failing miserably.

Pretty fun to think about. How the stories could connect in some fun ways.

#super robot wars #getter robo

[hikaru-shirogane]

GaoGaiGar: Becoming my personal favorite.

What is it about GaoGaiGar that's so special about it? Well, being the last installment in the Brave series, it had to go out with a bang. And, for all I know, if I ever completed every single Brave show, this would end up being one of my favorites.

First, it started off as MOTW, and then it became an all-out war with the 31 Machine Primevals, and Final comes along and ups the ante with the 11 Planetary Masters of Sol. Much like with Dagwon, the characters in GaoGaiGar were ones I grew to love.

The final arc, while not perfect, is a great ending to the series. And then, there's GaoGaiGar Final. That series of OVAs is a different beast entirely.

Not only are we introduced to Renais Kerdif Shishioh, Guy's cousin, we also meet a new set of antagonists, the aforementioned 11 Planetary Masters of Sol, of which its members are the antithesis of each of our heroes, some more blatant than others.

Final, if I'm being honest, is the perfect sendoff for the characters we come to know and love. And yet, their adventures are not over, as we would later see in GaoGaiGar vs. Betterman. Hopefully, with the release of the RG GaoGaiGar and RG Goldymarg, it could reignite interest in this show and, by extension, the entire Brave series.

Speaking of reignited interest in the Brave series, the remaster for Might Gaine had been announced some time ago, meaning a whole new generation can experience all of GGG's predecessors.

This is probably the most accessible of the 8 Brave shows, so give it a go if you like.

#brave series #yuusha series #the king of braves gaogaigar #king of braves gaogaigar #yuusha ou gaogaigar #brave series brainrot #gaogaigar final

[the-light-of-animation]

Woooooooooo I absolutely loved The Croods: A New Age so damn much. Like it was just so freaking AWESOME hahah :D

Kind of how I thought with the story not being as beautiful as the first film yet it was still better than I expected, but it was mostly just spending more time with these characters which is really all it needed to be, and it was A TON of fun. Like soooo much fun hahah. So happy I loved it, can’t wait to go see it again.

#matt babbles #the croods: a new age #loved eep and dawn's friendship so much #all the bettermans were great #and I loved the guy/eep stuff #I mean I freaking loved everything hahah #the whole punch monkey/banana plot was insanely ridiculous lol #and yeah just being with these characters in this world more was really fun #again so happy I enjoyed it this much

[frxstguardian]

I finally watched The Croods 2! Yes I paid $20 to watch it legally online, no I did not risk COVID-19 by going to a movie theater.

Pros:

Love triangle plot successfully avoided! Eep and Dawn spend more time together onscreen as friends than Guy and Dawn who never express romantic interest in each other.

I really liked the character design of the Bettermans and the creativity put into designing their home. You can tell that the artists had a lot of fun coming up with ideas.

Sequel did a good job juggling all the characters. 10 characters is a lot! Everyone had something to do (except for Sandy but she can’t even talk so she doesn’t count).

Hot Pink Girl Sloth TM was thankfully barely utilized. I wish they had gone for a pale red or any other somewhat natural color instead of hot pink.

I thought it was quite funny. The jokes were a bit non-stop, so your mileage may vary, but I was entertained. Standard family movie humor.

Voice actors were all great!

Cons:

Alan Silvestri did not return to score the sequel, and the soundtrack is not as good as the original. However, the Jack Black songs that play during the credits DO go off!

Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco did not return to direct the sequel, and I felt like we were missing the low angle shots and stuff that helped make the first movie feel realistic.

Partial thematic retread of the first movie, yet does not reach the same emotional intensity as the third act of the original.

There were minor continuity errors between the two movies. I think the creators just didn’t really care, and the errors are minor, but they do bother me a bit. For example, Grug says he’s only eaten a banana once a long time ago, but Guy handed him a banana halfway through the first movie.

Surfacing/textures weren’t as good as the original, and it is most noticeable in the one (1) flashback scene to the first movie. Dreamworks in general has smoother characters in recent years, but holy shit the $65M budget probably also contributed to it. The Croods (2013) had a budget of $135M. I have no idea how Dreamworks cut production costs in half???

#the croods #the croods 2 #the croods: a new age #the croods spoilers

[lesbow]

my thoughts on the croods 2 so far

based on literally NOTHING but the trailer so even i’m taking all this with a grain of salt

the art:

GOOD: the colors are gorgeous. TC was always a vibrantly breathtaking movie and luckily the second seems to be the same

BAD: i’m disappointed with the clothes. at the end of the first movie, the croods excluding guy got huge wardrobe changes to highlight they were not the same people they were in the beginning. but sadly the sequel seems to have??? cut that out entirely as the family are in their caveman clothes again.

GOOD: i like how the faces are more...... refined? the eyes look more natural and have neater lines. and i also like that the face shapes have been tweaked a little too. those that needed sharper features (eep’s face in the first movie was literally a circle) got them, and those that needed smoother and more rounded features (guy used to have the Anime Triangle Jaw) got them too.

BAD: this also comes with a negative though. as someone already pointed out, although their faces look neater, they also look a little too neat. all of guy’s blemishes are gone. actually, everyones blemishes are gone.

BAD: also, their hair! in the first movie, everybody’s hair is messy. it’s the wilderness! they don’t have combs. but in the trailer, guy’s hair looks like it was literally put into a straightener. and this is before he went through the betterman transformation. a side by side of what they did to guy (they butchered my boy!!) is in the post i already linked. it’s nuts

GOOD: another thing about the character designs i DID like was ugga. most of the girls/women’s faces in the first movie were round, soft, and wide eyed. ugga’s face in the trailer now has more variation to it. she has high, sharp cheekbones, her eyes are narrower, chin more pointed. the women do not just have “soft” facial features anymore. i like that theres more variety between them.

GOOD: i love the farm and domesticated animals. the wildlife has always always been one of my favorite things about the world of the croods and they deliver on it once again (black and white furry elephants!!!)

BAD: there’s a downside to this part too tho and i will direct all of that towards douglas. WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO HIM?!?!? he looks completely different in a bad way. he looks simple. i look at douglas in the trailer and see an easy-to-make toy. the colors are simple and no longer ombré, his teeth are more rounded and claws nonexistent. he doesn’t look anything like a tiny crocodile creature anymore, and more like a toy store plushie come to life. look at him in the trailer and then look at him in a pic from the first movie and then look me in my eyes and tell me they didn’t ruin my boy.

now about the actual plot:

BAD: why are the croods “searching for a perfect place to call home”? why is guy so eager to stay at the farm?? yes, guy is an inventor so new technology would interest him, but he was way more focused and concerned abt making it to Tomorrow. at the end of the first movie, they all agreed to become nomads and stay on the move, following the sun. a theme they explored was that home was not a place/“a cave”, and is actually just about being with the people you love. so why would they want to..... settle all of a sudden? eep ofc still wants to get out and grug doesn’t like strange things, but the others are like in love with the place?? i have to say with all these things so far it’s almost like they’re trying to scrap the end of the first movie entirely and just base the sequel off the beginning to middle sections. which is kinda disheartening since the end was so beautiful and made me tear up.

GOOD: i like that there’s another family, especially a mom, dad, and a daughter. i LOVE the fact that eep now has a friend her age and it looks like they develop a great relationship!! i desperately hope the same happens with ugga and the mom, and maybe grug and the other dad can bond too. all 3 of them, while having extremely different lifestyles, have very similar roles, and could confide in and relate to one another.

BAD: again, my biggest concern is the backtrack. in the trailer, grug is wary and upset with his family for growing attached to strangers. just like he was in the first movie with guy. “i don’t know if cave people belong in a modern world” they’re not cave people anymore. they’ve already developed past that in the first movie. “this place is changing everyone” grug is still afraid of change?!?? he got over this in the first movie too! so not only have they backtracked with the clothes, but also with the character arcs. this is a little worrying. how loosely connected is this sequel??

GOOD: nonetheless, i do think the croods encountering farmers is interesting. so far, they’ve only known that you can either be a caveman or a nomad. being neither is an entirely new concept to them, and it will be interesting to see how they deal with this third lifestyle.

BAD: WHAT HAPPENED TO RIDING THE SUN?!? i’m sorry, i’m just struggling to wrap my head around why the croods would be so ready to settle down. they had a plan. they were gonna follow the sun until they “caught it” and then ride it to Tomorrow. so what happened? especially with guy?!?!? that was literally his life’s most important goal. sooo.....????????

GOOD: while i was busting a lung, one of my friends suggested that the plot this time could be about “remembering one’s roots”. like how the theme for the first movie was that change and moving forward is good, so the sequel could now be about how, although progress is good, it’s also important to remember where you come from. i think this could be an interesting storyline if they do it right.

extra thoughts:

BAD: where are the other pets? the owl bear? the liyotes?? the land whale??? they didn’t go extinct bc the croods rode off into the sunrise with them. so Where Are They?????? did they get erased to?

GOOD: i definitely like the revamped betterman designs. apparently they looked completely different before and i very much prefer their looks now. i’m tired of the “blond, conventionally attractive character(s) think they’re better than others” trope. the bettermans look more like regular people and take pride in the technology they’ve created. i especially like how racially ambiguous they are, as i know this was one of the points the first movie got praised on too. (i do think goth!dawn wouldve been a cool contrast to eep’s bubbliness tho)

NEUTRAL: okay so this is based on both the trailer and fan theories. ive seen a few people wonder if the bettermans are actually guy’s long lost family since they look a lot like him, especially with their affinity for technology. while i don’t think this is a bad theory, i don’t know if i’d want it? idk it’s hard for me to explain but it feels like we’ve already covered guy and his family’s past. can you even imagine the convo lol. guy: “omg you guys are alive!!? i thought you’d been gruesomely drowned to death by tar!!!” / them: “oh no we just hopped right out of that. so anyways” like?!?!??? idk it would just feel...... idk. i think it’s unnecessary. (the theory that dawn is their adopted daughter and is actually guy’s last remaining relative/sister is interesting tho)

conclusion:

good total -> 8 points

bad total -> also 8 points

final thoughts -> so yeah. all in all i’m excited for this!! i love the croods and the themes and subtle little touches they had in the first movie, and am interested to see what they do in the second. unfortunately, it looks like a few things got retconned which is very concerning. i both like and dislike the new art/designs, and am very interested in the dynamic between the bettermans and the croods.

and reminder: i’m taking even my own first impression with a grain of salt (a very, very tiny one) since we’ve seen literally only one trailer so far. these are just my thoughts based on what we have. they might change as more things get released, or they might stay solid. who knows! anything goes until the movie actually comes out.

(also pink!belt will be the death of me)

#the croods #the croods 2 #babbles #long text post // #m: the croods

[frogcoven88]

Memorable Grug lines part 2

“I will turn this death cat around!”

“HEY! GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME!”

“That’s my girl! BOOM!”

“The pack stays together!”

“Eep!”

“Alright pack,nothing has tried to kill us in the last 5 minutes so let’s camp here.”

“Guy and Eep? Guy and Eep? GUY AND EEP!?!?”

“Hello? Hey hey! Your in charge of the fire!”

“DON’T CALL ME THAT!”

“START THE FIRE!”

“NO YOU COME ON MANNN! IM GONNA KILL YOU MAN!”

“No! The pack is stronger together!”

“Eep would never leave us!”

“WHAT THE HECK IS THAT!?!?”

“Never apologize for an effective kill circle!”

“It’s not the end...it’s just the beginning! Welcome to our tomorrow!”

“IN A MINUTE!!!”

“BaNaNa!”

“I tasted once,long ago, it was summer, the sun was warm on my shoulders, I was just a cub, well I ate that banana in one bite! And a day hasn’t gone by without me thinking about it!”

“No words can describe it Thunk! No words are good enough!”

“Come here sweet thing.”

“Better...man?”

“We’re the croods.”

“What’s going on here?”

“Kinda big isn’t it?”

“No bananas?”

“Do I have to like Phil?”

“Ok but if I’m gonna be alone, I’m gonna be alone with you!”

“It’s like this place is changing everyone!”

“More like a clear mountain stream...”

“In my day we didn’t stare at birds! We fought them!”

“Ooo banana!”

“Why not they’re everywhere!”

“Hot in here isn’t it?”

“But I already did?”

“I don’t have a problem YOU have a problem.”

“I DON’T LIKE IT HERE ALRIGHT!”

“YOU WON’T LET ME EAT BANANAS!!!”

“AND I DON’T LIKE YOU AT ALL!!!”

“BETTERMAN!!!”

“Ok! But there’s something I’ve wanted to do for a really really long time!”

“HE TRICKED ME! HE TOOK ME INTO HIS STUPID SECRET MAN CAVE! AND HE TRICKED ME!”

“It was really hot! I was full of shark milk, I WAS NAKED!”

“You we’re trying to take my daughter away! Promising my baby girl butterflies and babbling brooks!”

“I told you...we’re not HUNGRY!”

“Nuh uh. WE ATE ALL THE BANANAS!”

“Not for cave people!”

“Wait we’re not done! There’s more I was planning on saying to you!”

“No! Thought about it.”

“YOU JUST KEPT GIVING IT BANANAS?”

“YOU HAD NO IDEA YOU WERE WORKING FOR AN ITTY BITTY MONKEY!?!?”

“Hold tight Guy. As soon as we get out of this log we’ll start swinging and punching our way to freedom. AHHHHHHH!”

“Come one punch monkeys! LETS GET THIS ONNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!”

“It’s not just punch monkeys.”

“AND A DUDE! WITH...WEIRD EYES!”

“YEAH BANANAS ARE DELICIOUS! HOWS THAT OUR PROBLEM?”

“Way to go Phil!”

“Well I’m trying to get out of here before that MONSTER shows up!”

“Great. Now they have spheres AND fire! Guy! He just gave the monkeys fire!”

“You can’t speak punch monkey!”

“Yeah he’s with ME!”

“Congratulations Phil. You hit me where it hurts.”

“No. Guys a giant banana.”

“Well...if this is it. Phil, I’m sorry I ate your bananas.”

“Guy, there’s no one l’d rather have my daughter spent her tomorrow with...then you.”

“Nuh uh pack stays together. Bro.”

“Banana bro’s!”

“Bros for life!”

“You never told me about that! Did you know she had a peanut toe?”

“Boom?”

“Our baby’s LEAVING!!!”

“Hey everybody! Sandy said her first word! Sandy said Boomsies!”

“It’s a special dish we call, bronana bread!”

#the croods #grug crood #dreamworks #the croods 2

[weekendwarriorblog]

The ThanksgivingWarrior 11/25/20 – THE CROODS: A NEW AGE, MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM, ZAPPA, HAPPIEST SEASON, STARDUST and More!

It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and usually I’d be struggling to figure out how much the new movies might make in what is normally one of the most unpredictable weekends at the year. Wait a second. I’m getting déjà vu here. Didn’t I say this exact same thing in the intro for last week’s column? Probably. Let’s face it, kids. I am absolutely losing my mind with how bored I am getting looking at my laptop screen all day long, even though I’ve now set up a pretty sweet new TV system to watch stuff on!

Anyway, there is one family movie coming to theatres this weekend, and in any other Thanksgiving weekend, I’d suggesting getting out and going to theaters, but at this point in the pandemic, with COVID numbers so bad that even I, “Mr. Reopen the Movie Theaters!” can’t recommend going to see a movie in theaters… well, except maybe in New York City, where they’re still closed. Sigh. 

We’re going to do things a little different this week, because I wasn’t able to get to as many movies as I wanted but didn’t want to delay the column to Thanksgiving Day. Instead, I’ll post what I have done on Wednesday, then check back here on Friday when hopefully I’ve added a few more reviews. Cool?

Fortunately, the new animated sequel from DreamWorks Animation and Universal Pictures, THE CROODS: A NEW AGE, is a lot of fun, and this is from someone who really enjoyed the first movie quite a bit. The sequel’s premise is as simple as you can get: caveman family The Croods (voiced by Nick Cage, Catherine Keener, Emma Stone, Clarke Duke and Cloris Leachman), along with Ryan Reynold’s Guy, are still trying to survive in the wilds until they encounter a beautiful oasis that turns out to be the home of the more-evolved Bettermans, Phil (Peter Dinklage), Hope (Leslie Mann) and Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran).

I really liked the original The Croods quite a bit, so I’ve  been waiting patiently for DreamWorks to figure things out for a sequel. My instincts were definitely spot-on, because even if the original premise sounded a lot like The Flintstones, putting those voice actors together, even if it’s just Ryan Reynolds and Emma Stone proved to be quite prescient. A big part of the sequel is the burgeoning romance between their characters, Guy and Eep, much to the brutish chagrin of Eep’s father Grug (really Cage at his finest). Then along comes the Bettermans, and then it changes into a movie that is constantly showing the differences between the two families in many funny ways.

I’ve long admired Emma Stone as an actress, since she’s no naturally funny, and that’s even more apparent by how much she brings to Eep with merely her voice. Some of the scenes between her and Tran’s Dawn are absolutely hilarious. Cloris Leachman’s Gran also has some absolutely LOL moments later in the film. In some ways, Reynolds while funny, especially when pit against Cage and Dinklage’s characters, takes a back seat to the ladies.

I was equally impressed with the film in terms of its animation and how gorgeous and colorful the whole thing is, but more than that, it thrusts in a zaniness that I’d usually expect from something like Ren and Stimpy or SpongeBob SquarePants. So as much as it’s a kid movie, there’s enough to entertain older kids and even old men like me.

Without having seen Pixar’s Soul yet (this weekend!), Croods: A New Age may be one of the most entertaining animated movies I’ve seen this year, and that’s because it leans so heavily on being so absolutely crazy and zany that you can’t help but have fun.

You can read more about the movie and how it was made in a feature I wrote for Below the Line.

Next up is MA RAINEY’s BLACK BOTTOM, George C. Wilson’s adaptation of the 1982 August Wilson play that preceded Fences, which Netflix will give a theatrical release this week before it goes to streaming in December. Like Fences, this once again stars that film’s Oscar winner, Viola Davis, in the title role of Ma Rainey, a legendary blues and jazz singer in the late ‘20s who has come to a recording studio in Chicago to make a record with her band.  The band’s hotshot trumpet player Levee (the late Chadwick Boseman) is more interested in breaking out on his own, and he does everything to grandstand and try to impress the label guy (Jonny Coyne) even if it means throwing the rest of the band under the bus.

Since I never saw Wilson’s play, I really didn’t know what to expect from this movie, although the fact that most of it takes place in a recording studio definitely had my interest piqued. In case, you’re wondering about that odd title, it’s actually a song in Ma Rainey’s repertoire that she wants to do one way, but her manager Irvin (Jeremy Shamos) wants to try Levee’s version of the song. Ma’s not having any of it, and a lot of the film involves her

There’s been quite a lot of chatter about Chadwick Boseman getting a posthumous Oscar nomination for his performance in this, and it’s probably well-deserved since he gives quite a showy performance as Levee, giving a couple moving monologues including one about his mother being sexually assaulted by white men.  It’s a very powerful performance indeed.

Rainey is certainly an interesting character for Viola Davis to play, even if she’s not necessarily likable with her obstinate demeanor and the way she gloms over her eye candy Dussie Mae, played by Taylour Paige, and dotes over her nephew Sylvester (Dusan Brown). As interesting as those relationships are, I probably enjoyed the interaction between the musicians more, because Boseman is working with some greats like Colman Domingo, Michael Potts and Glynn Turman. It’s actually kind of interesting how it switches between Levee and the musicians and Ma dealing with Irving upstairs.  

As much as the Wilsons are exploring some interesting topics about race and the treatment of black people in the times, the movie frequently feels dated and it feels like some of the ideas are never fully revolved, even as it builds up to a fairly shocking climax.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, but it’s a perfectly fine dramatic piece, but I didn’t feel that it had the weight of other movies about race I’ve seen, including yes, Green Book (sorry, haters), and a lot of that probably has more to do with George Wilson’s direction than August Wilson’s writing.

Just want to quickly mention a couple movies I’ve already reviewed, which will hit the streamers this week, including Steve McQueen’s LOVERS ROCK on Amazon Prime Video, which I wrote about here, and Ron Howard’s HILLBILLY ELEGY, now on Netflix after a short theatrical release. I reviewed the latter here.

I’ve actually seen Lovers Rock a second time since the New York Film Festival, and I enjoyed it even more, as it’s really a well-crafted film even if it’s not as immediate maybe as Mangrove (now on Amazon Prime) and Red, White and Blue, which will be on Prime Video on December 4. I just love how Steve McQueen created a shorter piece that isn’t quite as deep as some of the others since Lovers Rock isn’t based on history but is just a nice young romance about two young people who meet and fall in love at a “Blues Night” party. It’s not as deep as the other movies I’ve seen, but is still good. Oh, and my interview with Steve McQueen is up at Below the Line finally, and I’m pretty proud of it, so check it out!

I don’t know if I have too much more to say about Hillbilly Elegy, but I hope people will give it a chance because even if it does have problems and isn’t perfect, it’s an interesting story, particularly for Glenn Close’s performance.

This week’s “Featured Flick” is Alex Winter’s doc, ZAPPA (Magnolia Pictures), an amazing film that takes a look at the life and career of the late Frank Zappa, best known for his quirky rock tunes but just at proficient at writing jazz and classical musical. I definitely went through a bit of a Zappa phase in my teens, and every once in a while, I would go back and see what had been released since his death in 1993, because his wife and widow Gail did a great job getting a lot of his unreleased music and live shows out there.

What shocked me when I saw Zappa was how little I really knew about the musician, because maybe he was a little bit of an enigma while he was still alive. I enjoyed the other doc, Eat That Question: Zappa In His Own Words, that came out a few years back, which was made up of public interviews Zappa gave, but it doesn’t really give as clear a picture of the man as Winter’s doc does.

For instance, Winter gets a lot of the musicians, including the amazing Ruth Underwood, who played with Zappa in the Mothers. You’d assume those musicians would presumably know the man best having toured with him for years, and yet, even they say that other than when they were rehearsing diligently or playing gigs, Zappa kept to himself. We also get a good sense of what a family man he was, since Winter was able to get Gail to talk to him before she herself passed way in 2015.

Zappa is an absolutely terrific doc that I hope music enthusiasts give a look even if they think they know what Zappa was about or maybe even those who didn’t care for his music. You might be pleasantly surprised by the tremendous amount of depth Winter brings to this talented musician and composer who still had a lot more to say. (And that’s an understatement!)

Incidentally, I’ll have an interview with Winter over at Below the Line very soon.

On the other end of the musical spectrum (more or less) is Gabriel Range’s STARDUST (IFC Films)  -- not to be confused with Matthew Vaughn’s far better Stardust – this one starring Johnny Flynn, who played a young Albert Einstein in Genius: Einstein, this time playing a young David Bowie. Years before breaking it big with his album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, young David just can’t catch a break in the U.S., so he goes on a road trip in 1971 with his Ron Oberman (Marc Maron), the A&R guy from his U.S. label who hopes to get Bowie across to young American audiences.

I’m not quite sure how someone can screw up a movie about Bowie, one of my all-time favorite artists, but making a movie that a.) takes place in the most boring era of Bowie’s career and b.) Not actually being able to use any of Bowie’s beloved tracks, certainly doesn’t help matters. It also doesn’t help that the script just isn’t great, creating a fairly dull biopic that relies more on Maron’s personality basically playing the same character we’ve seen him play so many times before to stay even halfway entertaining.  I couldn’t even get excited by Jena Malone, an actress I generally appreciate, as David’s wife Angie, because she plays her to be such a despicable and unsympathetic character.

If Maron is decent than Johnny Flynn is just plain flaccid as Bowie, playing him so mopey and aloof that when he finally emerges from his chrysalis as Ziggy Stardust – also with little of the flamboyance in his stage shows -- you just don’t give a rat’s ass anymore. Oh, and a lot of the movie is based on the theory that the history of mental issues in his family is what haunts the singer.  Drab and dull, Stardust manages to make the most exciting rock star of the last half century seem like the most boring person on earth. It’s a flat-out failure as a biopic.

Joan Carr-Wiggins’ GETTING TO KNOW YOU (Gravitas Ventures) is a witty Canadian high-concept rom-com, starring Natasha Little and Rupert Penry-Jones as two strangers who have a chance encounter at a hotel in Northern Ontario. The latter plays New Yorker Luke Manning, who is back home for his high school reunion, but when his positively smashed high school girlfriend Kaila (Rachel Blanchard from Peepshow) shows up at the hotel hoping to rekindle their spark, he asks Little’s character Abby to pretend to be his wife.

I don’t have a lot to say about this movie which was a nice surprise and clearly a labor of love for the filmmaker. Honestly, my favorite part of the movie is how hilarious Rachel Blanchard is in it. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me that found her deliriously drunk nightmare of an ex to be kind of sexy, but maybe that’s just me. In fact, the movie might have been even funnier if the rest of the cast were able to keep up with Blanchard, but the connection between the two leads did grow on me as it went along. It definitely has some funnier moments like when Kaila’s bowling husband Kenny shows up, and then some of Luke’s other classmates pop in as well, but it does have to work very hard whenever Blanchard isn’t on screen.  (I also enjoyed watching the soap opera that seemed to be going on between the employees of the hotel, which was perpetually funny.) Otherwise, it does feel a little flat whenever Blanchard is on screen.

The filmmaker’s lack of experience is sometimes obvious, because there are things like the repetitive music that I wasn’t so crazy about. Otherwise, this is a light and quaint indie that’s a little off the beaten track, but you won’t have any regrets if you make the effort to go looking for it.

I’m thrilled to see actor Clea Duvall back behind the camera for her second film as a director, HAPPIEST SEASON, which was going to get a theatrical release through Sony’s TriStar Pictures at one point. Instead, it’s now going to be on Hulu starting Wednesday. (Today!) It’s a high-concept rom-com starring Mackenzie Davis and Kristen Stewart with Davis playing Harper, a woman who has not come out of her closet to her family, which makes it that much more awkward when she brings her girlfriend Abby (Stewart) home for the holidays.

As mentioned, this is a fairly high-concept comedy that uses the idea of someone coming out to their disapproving family we’ve seen in many movies, but does it in a way that can take it seriously but still allow for some funny moments. In fact, there are times when the comedy even goes into Meet the Parents territory in terms of the character humor.

I really enjoyed Duvall’s previous film, The Intervention, and once again, she has put together such as great cast to realize the script that she wrote with Mary Holland. In fact, Holland has a great role, playing Harper’s bubbly sister Jane, who steals so many scenes in terms of the humor that I was shocked that I only realized later she co-wrote the script with Duvall.

Mackenzie Davis continues to be every director’s secret weapon, because like in Jason Reitman’s Tully, she can literally deliver on every aspect of the movie, keeping the comedy aspects grounded but also deliver a really poignant performance. She also works really well with Kristen Stewart, maybe bringing out things in Stewart we just haven’t been able to see before.

Besides having Alison Brie play Harper’s older sister and Aubrey Plaza as an old flame, Duvall also had the foresight to get the amazing Dan Levy, recent multi-Emmy winner for Schitt’s Creek, to play Abby’s best friend, who is constantly there for her to kvetch and who shows up to pretend to be her boyfriend. (Oddly, there’s a lot of that sort of thing going on in movies this week.)

Happiest Season works as a perfectly fine albeit fairly traditional holiday rom-com in a similar way as The Family Stone. More than anything, Duvall continually proves her abilities as a filmmaker that can handle comedy and drama equally well.

Next up, is Alan Ball’s UNCLE FRANK (Amazon), the Oscar-winning writer of American Beauty, directing only his second movie after 2007’s Towelhead – you might remember his HBO shows Six Feet Under and True Blood. This one, set in the ‘70s, stars Paul Bettany as the title character with Sophia Lillis from It Chapter One and Two playing his niece Beth, a teen from Creekville, South Carolina who worships her New York-based professor uncle. When she goes to college in New York, she attends one of Frank’s parties with her pseudo-boyfriend and ends up learning that Frank’s “roommate” Wally (Peter Macdissi) is actually his boyfriend. When Frank and Beth return to South Carolina for his father’s funeral, he has to try to keep his sexuality and relationship with Wally a secret from his family. Yeah, this does sound a little like Happiest Season, doesn’t it? It is, but only to a point.

At first, Uncle Frank is a cute but not-particularly-deep coming-of-age story about Lillis’ character as a fish out of water in New York City. Once Wally is introduced, he seems to be there just to make jokes and lighten the mood as it turns into a road trip. From his previous work, I’ve grown to enjoy Ball’s unconventional storytelling, but by comparison, this movie is very by-the-books, so it never really grabs the viewer.

The biggest problem with Ball’s latest--and it’s one that I see in a lot of movies these days--is that it doesn’t know whether it should be a comedy or a drama, and because it isn’t particularly funny, you expect it to fare better as a drama and yet, it doesn’t.

Ball has such a great cast including Judy Greer, Margo Martindale, Stevens Root and Zahn, all playing the duo’s racist Southern family, but they disappear for long sections of the movie, and then don’t do much when they return for the more dramatic last act where it turns into such a maudlin melodrama once Frank and Beth get back to South Carolina.  As they mourn the dead patriarch, Frank keeps reflecting back on what drove him to New York in the first place, and we’re pummelled with so many flashbacks. Lillis’ character almost gets lost at this point, even this story is supposed to be told from her point of view.

Essentially, Uncle Frank falls somewhere quite literally between Hillbilly Elegy and Happiest Season but not being as good as either. It’s just disappointing that Ball didn’t have someone offering good advice on handling material that will constantly have you groaning, “What was the point?”

Screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom, State of Play, 21 Bridges makes his directorial debut with MOSUL, which will debut on Netflix this Thursday. As you can figure out from the title, this takes place in Iraq in the fall of 2016 where an army of 100,000 Iraqi soldiers and militia men mobilize to liberate Iraq’s second largest city from ISIS along with the embedded journalist Ali Maula. Surprise, surprise, this is another movie from last year’s September festival season, too, and there also was a documentary from last year with the same name about the same story, too.

I’ve been a fan of some of the films Carnahan has written over the years, some mentioned above, but his directorial debut certainly sounds ambitious, since he’s working with an all-Arab cast. I look forward to watching and reviewing this one, hopefully before Friday.

Premiering on Disney+ this Friday after losing its theatrical release – this is becoming the norm for Disney, huh? – is Ashley Avis’ adaptation of Anna Sewell’s classic piece of literature, BLACK BEAUTY about a girl and her horse. The girl is played by Mackenzie Foy from Interstellar and The Conjuring, and Black Beauty the horse is voiced by Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet. No, I did not make that up, and I can’t wait to watch this, to see how that works exactly. Look for my review later this week… hopefully.

On top of that, those Trixie Pixies at Disney+ have somehow managed to secretly pull together a Taylor Swift concert called folkore: the long pond studio sessions, which will premiere exclusively on Disney+ November 25. Oh, that’s today!

Debuting on Showtime this Sunday is Errol Morris’ new doc MY PSYCHEDELIC LOVE STORY, which takes a look at the Acid King Timothy Leary through the eyes of his lover, Joanna Harcourt-Smith, trying to figure out her part in his turn into a narc for the CIA. Another one I hope to get to soon because while I like Morris’ political films like The Fog of War and even the Steve Bannon doc American Dharma, this seems more in the vein of Tabloid, which I also enjoyed. Will try to watch this over the weekend and report back.

Also of note is that the doc She is the Ocean (Blue Fox Entertainment) will be hitting On Demand this week. I guess I never got around to reviewing it.

So, let’s see. We’ve had some good movies, we’ve had some not great movies, and we’ve had a few movies that I just didn’t get around to watching yet. What does that leave? How about two of the worst movies I’ve seen this year? Are you ready?

SUPERINTELLIGENCE (HBO Max) is the latest comedy from Melissa McCarthy and hubby director Ben Falcone, and boy, it won’t take you long to realize why New Line decided LONG before COVID not to give it a theatrical release, instead handing it over to its new streamer HBO Max. 

In this, McCarthy plays Carol Peters, an average Seattle woman, who – I mean, honestly, does it even matter what she does? It’s irrelevant. Carol encounters an artificial intelligence being with the voice of James Corden that has just achieved self-awareness and wants to study Carol in order to understand humanity. But what are its plans… to save humanity or destroy it? Only Carol has the power to keep the world from finding out. 

I honestly don’t even know where to begin except that I was a Melissa McCarthy stan for a long time before Bridesmaids;  Superintelligence makes it all-too-obvious that she needs to stop making movies with Falcone. It’s not that he’s an incapable director, but he just doesn’t give her the actual direction she needs. The movie is just all over the place, starting with the physical comedy McCarthy has done so much in her movies, but then turning into a romantic comedy as the AI tries to reunite Carol with her college boyfriend George, played by Bobby Cannavale. Apparently, making The Heat with Sandra Bullock has made Falcone think his wife could or should be Sandra Bullock. No, she can’t. Throwing her into a ridiculous concept like this one that isn’t very solid does little to endear McCarthy to the fans she keeps driving away with bad movies like this.

I’m sure it doesn’t help that I really hate James Corden and hearing his voice over the course of the movie while also acting very META by referencing the ACTUAL James Corden, Carpool Karaoke, etc. Just none of it is very funny. Oddly, this is written by the same guy who wrote the duo’s earlier movie, The Boss, which I didn’t think was that bad, but mainly because McCarthy was paired with Kristen Bell for a lot of the movie.

On top of that, Superintelligence wastes its entire supporting cast from Brian Tyree Henry to Sam Richardson (from Veep) but also has Karan Son from Deadpool playing the EXACT SAME CHARACTER he played in Like A Boss, but only for a few minutes then he’s gone. At least it had the forethought to cast Jean Smart as the President, but the fact that I didn’t even like Bobby Cannavale in this might be the biggest sign of how much I absolutely detested Superintelligence.

There are movies you might hate when you see them in theaters but later realize that they’re probably funny enough cable. That is Superintelligence, except for the funny part. What else can I say except that “Superintelligence” is not a term I'd use for whoever greenlit this piece of crap.

Also debuting on HBO Max this week is the new thriller series The Flight Attendant (HBO MAX), starring Kaley Cuoco, who really hasn’t been doing much outside The Big Bang Theory, so this should give her a chance to show how funny she is. She plays a woman who wakes up in the wrong hotel and wrong bed with a dead man, so it already sounds like a great premise right there. I guess the entire first season will debut on Thanksgiving.

And yet, believe it or not, Superintelligence isn’t even the worst movie of the week! Nope.

Apparently, Josh Duhamel’s new comedy, BUDDY GAMES (Saban Films/Paramount), played in some theaters over the weekend, but it’s now available on digital and On Demand. It’s Duhamel’s directorial debut, and it’s about as dude-bro as you can possibly get, as it has Duhamel, Dax Sheppard, Kevin Dillon, Nick Swardson, Jensen Ackles and Dan Bakkedahl as a group man-children friends who regroup five years after going their separate ways to bring back their “Buddy Games,” a series of obstacle and endurance tests that end up reviving ill feelings between a few of them.

I’m not sure how quickly I knew I was in trouble with this one, because at first, I thought that maybe Duhamel made a fun indie comedy about friendship ala the underrated A Good Old Fashioned Orgy. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was wrong as wrong could be, since by the halfway point it turned into something as innately immature as Jackass.

The general idea is that Duhamel plays Bob, the guy who found enormous success after splitting from his friends, marrying Olivia Munn’s Tiffany, but then he finds out that his old friend Shelly (Bakkedahl) has been put in rehab for a drug overdose. Turns out that at the last Buddy Game, Swardson’s character shot Shelly in the nuts with a BB gun, and he eventually lost his other testicle as well. That’s about the level of this low-brow comedy that rarely fails to grab the lowest hanging…um… fruit.

As it goes along, it just gets worse and worse to the point where there was one scene where the guys are at a bar while trying to get girls to buy them drinks that just got so disgusting, I almost turned it off. If I did, I would have missed the scene with a gila monster going after steaks strapped to the heads in another lame competition.

I can go on and on about how Buddy Games is but probably the worst infraction is that it does the most sexist thing possible by basically putting having women for a few moments and none that particularly advance anything.

Duhamel isn’t a bad director, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he got hired to direct another comedy someday soon, but this movie just very bad, very gross and almost excruciating to sit through at times. To call Buddy Games moronic, idiotic or even asinine, would be an insult to the morons, idiots or asses, who are likely to be the movie’s target audience.

On Friday, New York’s Metrograph is bringing back the 2017 4k restoration of Fruit Chan’s Made in Hong Kong as a ticketed screening running from Friday through December 3. You can also still catch Shalini Kantaya’s Coded Bias and the French New Wave anthology Six In Paris as ticketed screenings through December 3.

Up at New York’s Lincoln Center, you can catch its World of Wong Kar Wai with a couple films available this Wednesday, including his fantastic drama In the Mood for Love, but you can also get the 7-film Janus Bundle for $70 which is a saving over the individual movie cost of $12 apiece. Those seven films and five more will be shown over the course of December.

Other stuff out this week that I wasn’t able to get to include:

The Christmas Chronicles 2 (Netflix) Last Call (K Street Pictures) Faith (Vertical) Saul and Ruby’s Holocaust Survivor Band (Samuel Goldwyn) The Walrus and the Whistle Blower (Gravitas Ventures) Life in a Year (Amazon Prime) 32 Weeks

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

#TheWeekendWarrior #Movies #Reviews #Zappa #MaRaineysBlackBottom #HappiestSeason #GettingToKnowYou #VOD #Streaming #Superintelligence #BuddyGames

[recentanimenews]

Happy 20th to PlayStation 2, the Only System I Waited Overnight in Line to Buy

  PlayStation 2 may not have launched in North America until October 26, but it made its debut in Japan on March 4, 2000. That means it's been exactly 20 years since the launch of PS2, so there's no better time than today to celebrate one hell of a successful home console. Not only did it end up becoming the best-selling console hardware of all time, it also has the honor of being the only one I ever waited in an overnight line to buy.

  The time was, by the measure of anniversaries, about seven months in the future from our current celebration. On a brisk late October night in Louisville, KY, I made the impulse decision to pull up to our local K-Mart at around 3:00am and… sit there on the sidewalk until the store opened at 8:00am. I wasn't alone, of course; that would just be weird. At first there were a handful of people hanging out, but by the time the sun rose there were at least 20 behind me, most of which wouldn't get the golden ticket that guaranteed you a console upon entry.

  Thankfully, I was one of those lucky dozen or so—seriously, K-Mart, up your stock game!—and I proceeded to pick up a PS2 with as many launch titles as I could afford on top of the $299+ asking price (which was one). There were actually a bunch of games to choose from, but I ended up leaving the store with a fresh copy of SSX, which I kind of liked? It definitely impressed me at the time, and it was at least more substantial than the glorified tech demo known as FantaVision. 

Perhaps even more importantly, PS2 was my very first DVD player, which opened my world to paychecks that were spent at Best Buy within literal minutes of receiving them. I even got my first taste of anime on DVD thanks to my PS2—I know for a fact it was the Bandai release of Betterman, to which I can confidently say, I've seen better, man. I used my PS2 to play a lot of games, but I used it to play a loooooot of movies and anime. 

    Those games were no joke. The sheer number of incredible experiences released on PS2 throughout its long lifespan is kind of mind-blowing at even the slightest of glances. There was the legendary Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty demo disc that came with a free copy of Zone of the Enders! Silent Hill 2, AKA one of the best survival horror games of all time! Two of Fumito Ueda's most celebrated games—ICO and Shadow of the Colossus—started their lives here. Hideki Kamiya kicked off the Devil May Cry franchise with a bang in 2001, changing character action games forever. Speaking of changing games forever… Grand Theft Auto III! 

  I'm seriously just going through major games in order at this point, and I haven't even made it to 2002. This could easily just be a list of everything I remember off the top of my head and it would elicit a ton of "Oh yeah, wow!" responses. It's taking all I have not to just shout Gitaroo Man into the rafters and trade my keyboard in for an acoustic guitar primed and tuned to play "Legendary Theme" until my fingers fall off. 

  Look, I didn't have nostalgia for PS2 until this very second. 

    Even the anime games were pretty solid. If you ask features writer Daniel Dockery about 2006's One Piece: Grand Adventure, he'll probably talk your entire body into pieces. As for myself, I was all about developer New Corporation's take on Hajime no Ippo, which somehow managed to sneak its way to the west as Victorious Boxers: Ippo's Road to Glory. It's hard to believe, but this is legitimately a good boxing video game! 

  If you somehow ran out of PS2 games to play at any given moment, this was one of the few major consoles to debut with solid backwards compatibility with the previous generation. You could play most PSone games without any issues, which is a concept that's fleeting today, to say the least. You can read more about PS2's backwards compatibility straight from the engineer who built it. 

Finally, how many other consoles can boast a series of commercials directed by David Lynch?

  Obviously, I just couldn't wait until freaking October to talk about how great of a system PlayStation 2 was. I have no doubt many of you reading this have similarly fond memories, so please, without further ado, let them loose upon our eyeballs. 

  Tell us all about the PS2 moments and games you'll never forget in the comments! 

    -------

Joseph Luster is the Games and Web editor at Otaku USA Magazine. You can read his webcomic, BIG DUMB FIGHTING IDIOTS at subhumanzoids. Follow him on Twitter @Moldilox. 

    Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

  By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

[yellowledbetterman]

1-50

I’m hoping this is for the TMI questions!

1: What are you wearing?-A “ClearlyFaded” white tanktop and gray shorts

2: Ever been in love?-not that I know of?

3: Ever had a terrible breakup?-never been in a relationship lol

4: How tall are you?-5′2″ on a good day

5: How much do you weigh?-that number is for my eyes, and my eyes o n l y

6: Any tattoos do you want?-for some reason I’ve always wanted to get a tooth somewhere? and i also want to get something small for my dad.  but really, i love completely insignificant tattoos.

7: Any piercings that you want?-not really.  I used to have my ears pierced but after like 2 days i got an infection and never did it again becasue I’m a HUGE wuss. i love all the different places you can get pierced on your ears though, I think it’s awesome that there’s so much creativity in it now

8: OTP?-BUCKY BARNES & STEVE ROGERS 4LYFE

9: Favorite Show?-I’m really into the Great British Baking Show and it’s Masterclass, and TWIN PEAKS HOLY SHIT I LOVE IT SO MUCH

10: Favorite bands?-Pearl Jam, Eric Clapton, The Beach Boys, Foo Fighters, Ramones, Derek and the Dominos, Cream, Carpenters, Eddie Vedder, Led Zeppelin, Queen, etc etc etc

11: Something you miss?-my dad, enjoying things, my life

12: Favorite song?- right now it’s any song off of Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys

13: How old are you?-17

14: Zodiac sign?-Taurus

15: Hair Color?-dark brown

16: Favorite Quote?-”who the hell is Bucky?”  IT GETS ME EVERY TIME

17: Favorite singer?-ugh this is always hard because I never know if i should judge this based on actual skill or based on my personal opinions. Clapton’s amazing, Vedder’s amazing, Steve Perry’s voice has a special voice in my heart, Karen Carpenter, Robert Plant’s a fucking genius, like there’s too many.  wait, i can’t leave out Brian Wilson bc HOW, and fucking FREDDIE MERCURY ARE YOU KIDDING ME

18: Favorite color?-i like grays

19: Loud music or soft?-both, all the time, I dont care,

20: Where do you go when you're sad?-on my swing on my deck or my pool because its a way I can get away from everything. actually, anwhere where I have a speaker or headphones

21: How long does it take you to shower?-I take a damn long time

22: How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?-it depends on the morning. I usually have to shower, so I’d say at least an hour

23: Ever been in a physical fight?-nop

24: Turn on?-sense of humor always

25: Turn off?-arrongance

26: The reason I joined Tumblr?-my best friend made me :)

27: Fears?-puking, children, honestly anything that has to do with reproduction

28: Last thing that made you cry?-i dont remember, it’s been like 2 years

29: Last time you cried?*see above answer*

30: Meaning behind your url-Yellow Ledbetter and Betterman are 2 Pearl Jam songs, and I just... pushed them together

31: Last book you read?-Catcher in the Rye is the last one I’ve read all the way through but I’ve read some of a few others since then

32: Last song you listened to?-Bleed the Freak by Alice in Chains (JAM)

33: Last show you watched?-Agents of SHIELD

34: Last person you talked to?-idk I’m in this group chat with like 4 people so it’s one of them

35: The relationship between you and the person you last texted?-we’re pals

36: Favorite food?-i’m super into cereal right now

37: Place you want to visit?-the Fremont Troll in Seattle, Portland, Maine, New Orleans, etc

38: Last place you were?-besides my house, Wildwood beaches

39: Do you have a crush?-i dont think so?

40: Last time you kissed someone?-never

41: Last time you were insulted and what was it?-i got called a bitch last night because I was being a bitch lmao

42: What color underwear are you wearing?-i like to think of them as fuchsia

43: What color shirt are you wearing?-white

44: What color bottoms are you wearing?-gray

45: Wearing any bracelets?-i always have two rubberbands on my left wrist

46: Last sport you played?-uh i dont play sports but I swim?

47: Last song you sang?-Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My SHoulder) by the Beach Boys

48: Last prank call you remember doing?-I dont think I’ve ever made a prank call u h o h

49: Last time you hung out with anyone?-yesterday I hang out with my boys lol

50: Favorite movie?- I have a super long list of my favorite movies, but my favorite is probably The Prestige honestly, I could watch it all day everyday for the rest of my life I love it so much.