I just looked on youtube, there's a sketch that was cut for time last night. It's a pre-produced high budget Grinch parody sketch(martin short as the grinch).
I assume it was cut because of the extra giggly Weekend Update that went long.
I prefer the bloody "A Christmas Carol" sketch, that this is kind of a sequel to. But thanks for sharing it!
Saw Sonic 3 with my friend this evening. I absolutely loved it, my favorite of the three. Fill to the brim with Sonic Adventure 2 references. I loved it, easily one of my favorite movies this year.
The resident Trolls superfan! Saw Trolls Band Together via early access and absolutely loved it!
Just saw Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and it was worth the wait! I’d say it’s easily the best one in the trilogy and maybe one of my favorite films I’ve seen this year.
The movie did a great job with using elements from the games (specifically the Adventure games, the Shadow spin-off) and adapting parts of Adventure 2’s story and Shadow’s story into film. Usually, some stories and premises in video games don’t work well when used for films (usually resulting in some changes having to be made or the story to fit the film format and make the story compelling or the story being flat and uncompelling) but Adventure 2’s story worked fantastically in the film, not to mention it had a ton of references to the games in it that were very cool to see.
I also thought the movie did a nice job balancing the comedy and stupid moments with the more dramatic, serious and more action-y scenes in the film. I felt that one didn’t overpower the other and there was an equal mix of it. Although I didn’t find some jokes funny, I chuckled, smiled and laughed at quite a few. I am going to use spoiler tags to cover what I am talking about (just to make sure I don’t reduce enjoyment for people who haven’t seen it), but some jokes and parts I liked was Sonic calling Shadow “Hot Topic”, the scene with Eggman and Gerald dancing together as they are going to steal the G.U.N key (the choreography during that scene was so freaking clean), and Eggman saying “Go with God, stinking hedgehog” in Spanish(?) to Shadow. I actually think the humor in this one was far better than the jokes in the previous two films!
Pretty good movie, and I’m excited to see what they plan on doing with the 4th movie when it releases in a couple of years. I should also add, the post-credits scene shocked me a lot, though that’s all I’m gonna say about that!
“Woah-shi! It’s a double Yoshi explo-shi!” - Yoshi’s Woolly World ad, 2015
If you’re curious, the character in my PFP is Toothy from Happy Tree Friends.
I watched Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and it is actually awesome! It lives up to the first 2 movies (which I also really enjoyed), and has the best plot in my opinion. Knuckles was a huge improvement from how he was in Sonic 2. There were a few characters I loved from the first 2 that were kind of sidelined, but it made sense with the plot (still would’ve liked to see more of them though). I definitely recommend this movie to those who haven’t seen it yet!
Wanted somewhere to go on a short rant about this and here seemed like the place. Streaming services can go get stuffed. I'm cancelling them and I know that means nothing because their recent moves just make then more money but I don't care. They can get stuffed. Especially Disney
Background, I was paying for Disney+ and Amazon Prime and sharing Disney+ across my family. I then shared a Netflix account with my parents and sister. But then Netflix clamped down on account sharing which sucked but I regularly visit my parents so can get around it. But then they all upped their price so.... I cut Amazon Prime (and sailed the seas to get the last season of The Boys) no big deal
But then Disney+ both upped their price, significantly, AND clamped down on account sharing. And their account sharing clampdown seems far more aggressive than Netflix's. I cancelled my yearly sub but got myself another month for December, because Christmas movies. In the last month I've been asked to re-confirm my household. Multiple times. I have the email tied to the account, nobody else in my family is trying to access it (the ones who cared got their own subs when I cancelled earlier). I'm only using it in this house. I'm paying for it. I've still been asked multiple times to re-confirm my household
So I'm not renewing it. I'm buying BluRays again (to the extent that you can even get them anymore). Is maintaining a NAS and buying BluRays cheaper? Maybe not. I did buy the Indiana Jones box-set and a couple of other movies on BluRay for ~$50AU last week which is ~3months of Disney+. And if I keep adding movies I'll eventually need to add more storage to my NAS. HDD costs currently work out to be ~$1AU per BluRay and ~$2.30AU per UHD BluRay. At full quality. Ignoring power, maintenance, time etc. But I own these copies, I have full control over them, I can use them however I want, I can share them with whoever I want, they won't be removed from my NAS, I won't have the quality degrade on me, I have them
........... the only problem is BluRays are becoming increasingly unpopular. Some movies just straight up don't come out on BluRay anymore. Notably Disney, because of course it is. If I wanted a copy of Inside Out 2 on BluRay for example I'd have to import it. Which isn't ideal. Also when I got my local JBs their movie section is getting smaller by the year. There's still enough I can find stuff I don't have and want to add to my collection if I'm just browsing. But if I'm looking for something specific? No chance
So it's a rough state of affairs and I don't at all like the direction we're all being pushed down. Someone needs to come in and up-end this industry again. More to the point, we as consumers need to give them the finger and tell them to bugger off. Otherwise I fear we're going to be stuck in this death spiral
Glisten and the Merry Mission on the Roku Channel. Talk about lucky, I wanted to rent this one and Roku had it for free. I remember seeing Build-A-Bear on social media pushing this one to the point of releasing it in theaters (albeit limited to Cinemark ones). Being someone who loves Christmas movies, I wanted to watch it. Gotta say, it was a cute movie about a young elf trying to find a magical reindeer and save Christmas from a toy shortage. Had a few moments I didn't see coming. Nice Christmas watch.
Maybe will consider buying a digital copy so I can watch it every year, although, I'd prefer DVD and Blu-Ray for buying movies. I really don't trust movie studios to let me keep a movie digitally forever (my digital library has been mainly digital codes included with physical copies, this way if a digital platform pulled a movie, I have my DVD and Blu-Ray to fall back on).
The resident Trolls superfan! Saw Trolls Band Together via early access and absolutely loved it!
Watched Hardboiled (1992) the other night. One of the all time greatest action flicks, by the legendary John Woo. The choreography plays out like a ballet of sheer destruction and mayhem, they really don't make them like this anymore. If you're at all an action fan, you owe it to yourself to see this movie.
I watched Dungeons and Dragons movie lately. Fantastic movie. I didn't expect much and almost discarded it as another corpogarbage live action but someone recommended it to me. And boy am I grateful they did. This movie has everything - humour, nice writing, enjoyable characters and slimes. Also those crazy actions that you can do in DnD with items? All present. They really did their research
Bring me the sesame, miso, citrus and pepper flavored fish cakes
Sonic 3
Probably the best one yet, really funny and enjoyable with just the right amount of seriousness. The evil duo was awesome and I think I really like Shadow's cool edginess after all. Do not forget to watch the secret endings. There are two of them and one of them is at the very end.
Currently looking through the free movies section on YouTube and saw that they made a few Aardman movies free on there. While I try finding something to watch, I’ll just write about a movie I saw months ago that I didn’t write about on here…
A few months ago I saw Paprika while I was on my movie craze back in October. I had heard of this one before and what drew me to it was the premise and screenshots I saw of its crazy and creative visuals and animation.
The premise goes like this: a research institute is making a device that allows their employees to enter and share patients dreams’ so they can help them with their mental illnesses and nightmares they have. However, the device is stolen by an unknown perpetrator who uses it to cause nightmares to victims, with the nightmares affecting the mental states of the victims and making them go mad. To solve this, one of the researchers enters the dream world under the alter-ego of an optimistic dream detective to solve the mystery with the help of her colleagues and one of her patients.
The film is known for its themes and animation, and was directed by the late Satoshi Kon, who was a well known anime director also known for Tokyo Godfathers,Perfect Blue, and Millenium Actress (which I was in the middle of watching once but I didn’t finish it), and Paprika was his final film.
First off, the animation is very, VERY gorgeous. It’s probably one of the best anime films I’ve seen in terms of animation. The images and subjects the animation depicts are fantastical and a tad bit psychedelic, which is fitting when it comes to depicting the strange and hallucinatory nature of dreams since dreams are usually centered on weird or random subjects that don’t make much sense. The parts that stuck out the most to me in terms of animation was the opening sequence, Paprika being inside Konakawa’s constantly changing dream, the “dream parade” featured prominently in the film, as well as the parts with the city near the end of the movie when the dream world begins to merge with the real world and the gigantic dream parade walking through the city while a ton of stuff goes on. It’s so awesome, and I just love the slight psychedelic-ness with it. It makes the film look so unique and artsy!
I also thought the themes were interesting, that being the boundaries between dreams and reality and being able to distinguish the two, which I read is a common theme in Kon’s other works, namely Perfect Blue and Millenium Actress. That, paired with the fantastical and complex animation, are a very cool and interesting combination, and just makes the film feel very different from the others and so unique.
However, I do have some criticisms, but they are slight. Although I do think the film and the animation are great, I found a few of the characters unmemorable. You don’t know much about them so you can’t really connect with them or know some of their motivations. I’d say a few exceptions are Detective Konakawa and Kōsaku, and Paprika’s upbeat and cheerful personality stuck out a lot to me, but I think most of the characters are flat, which I thought was the case for the antagonist a bunch. They don’t comment on what happened to him at the end when the gigantic baby sucks him up or suggest where he went. I think he died, given that after the giant baby consumes him the nightmare he caused ended, but afterward they don’t say anything on the antagonist again. I’d assume that they didn’t tell what happened to him because the whole theme about the film was distinguishing dreams and reality and it becoming increasingly indistinguishable, plus the characters were questioning if the dream parade appearing in the city near the end was real or not. I feel like his motivations weren’t interesting and shallow, and a bit cliche. There was also this part where they revealed that Atsuko secretly had feelings for Kōsaku despite her cold demeanor toward him, and they fall in love at the end, but that fact was thrown in at the last minute and the film did not have any hints toward that beforehand. You could tell a little bit that Kōsaku had feelings for Atsuko, but for her, given she is stoic and more serious than the other characters, it’s hard to tell what she felt about him before the reveal.
The plot can be a bit hard to follow. Because the film is about distinguishing dreams, some parts can’t be easily understood and it’s sometimes hard to tell whether what is happening is actually real or not (besides the final showdown in the city with the dream parade and antagonist). However, it adds onto the theme and challenges the viewer to try and distinguish the dreams and reality by themselves, which I think works a ton because of the film’s premise being centered on life-like dreams. But, I think that for some viewers, not being able to tell what is reality or merely just a dream could frustrate them, especially since the film doesn’t have full explanations for what is real and what isn’t. It’s sometimes easy to tell what is a dream, but sometimes it’s harder to figure out.
I liked this film and it’s just such a great mixture of fantasy and sci-fi and has stunning animation and visuals with interesting themes on top of it. However, if you are going to watch this, be warned there is suggestive content and some violence in it, plus some scenes are kind of scary to watch.
EDIT: Cut out a few unnecessary words. Also realized I got the name of one of the characters wrong…how embarrassing…
Back to watching films on YouTube, and today I just finished Who Framed Roger Rabbit after seeing they added it for free.
Although I am into cartoony films and enjoy animation a ton, I’ll admit that I never saw this before. I had heard about the film before, but I never knew anything about the plot or seen any clips of it, but I remember some people were comparing it to that Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers film (which I actually saw) that was released on Disney+ a few years ago, plus that film was written as being a spiritual successor. Although I still didn’t know much about Roger Rabbit from the comparisons, I know the general consensus was that Roger Rabbit was the better film, both with the animation and story. Now that I’ve seen it, it’s really good, and I definitely agree it was better than the Rescue Rangers film.
This was such an entertaining watch, unsurprisingly. The film’s plot about a hard-boiled detective working with a jittery toon who has been framed for murder is such an interesting premise, especially with the contrast in both their personalities and mediums (Eddie being human but Roger being animated and 2D). The 2D animation is so great and well-done, and the goofy and slapstick cartoony animation and classic antics work so well with the live-action, not to mention some parts of the live-action are exaggerated and cartoony too! One thing I liked about it was how slapstick-y it was. It had a lot of cartoony antics common in almost every cartoon you see, but it wasn’t ever to the point it was cliche or bland, and it made the film way more memorable that way, and I think the zany and slapstick-ness was something that the Rescue Rangers movie was missing, which I think if it was used there, then it could have enhanced the animation far more.
The characters were great too! None of them ever felt cliched and they were so fun, including the smaller and more one-note characters. I liked the dynamic between Eddie and Roger and thought their personalities were a great foil to each other and a great example of the straight man and goofy man trope. Judge Doom was super intimidating, and I was very surprised when after he survived getting rolled over by a steamroller and the reveal he was a toon in disguise once they show his realistic fake eyeballs popping out when he inflates himself and reveal his evil red cartoon eyes. I actually think the animated red eyes on the realistic human disguise look kind of creepy, which did a great job at upping the scary and threatening vibes Doom gives off. Jessica was interesting, mainly since you don’t really know her intentions at first, and the Toon Patrol with the five weasels were fun for me because of their personalities despite their roles as minions and being kind of unimportant. They kind of reminded me of the stupid and goofy weasels from Conker’s Bad Fur Day, so that increased my enjoyment with them.
On top of the slapstick and cartoony antics, a bunch of the jokes and moments kind of caught me off-guard. It’s surprising how they got away with a PG rating back then since it has a bit of suggestive jokes and humor that really surprised me.
I just think this film was such a nice watch and I can’t believe I took so long to see it. After seeing this and a few of Don Bluth’s films a few months ago, I am appreciating older 2D animation and cartoons a lot more, and there’s this feeling with them that I like a lot, since it’s very expressive, stylized and exaggerated compared to other animation styles I’ve seen. It’s making me sad that 2D animation in films has sort of died off and isn’t as popular anymore compared to 3D. I am disappointed that the film didn’t get a follow-up since I would love more of fully 2D animated characters and slapstick mixed in with live-action and both humans and cartoon characters interacting with each other and crazy stuff happening. It’s such a great film and I think I’ll be thinking about it quite a bit.
@Pastellioli Yeah, Roger Rabbit is a fantastic film. It's incredible how well they were able to match the 2d animated characters with the live action footage, especially considering it was made well before cgi was prevalent as it is today. I first saw it as a kid in the 80s. The scene with Judge Doom at the end was absolute nightmare fuel let me tell you, haha.
@OldManHermit It really is awesome! The 2D animation with the zany cartoon antics and slapstick work so wonderfully well with the live-action without feeling out of place or cliche. Not to mention some of the slapstick antics used in love-action (like Judge Doom being flat after getting rolled over by a steamroller and inflating himself back up) were done so well and still fit in with the live-action. Usually, I think when some films try to apply cartoony slapstick to live-action, it looks off and weird looking (one that comes to mind for me is this scene I recall seeing in Space Jam where one of the human players is flattened and they put air in him but he inflates like a balloon) but the ones in Roger Rabbit blend in well and aged well. I wish there were more 2D live-action hybrid films, because while there are films combining CGI and live-action, there haven’t really been any that use cartoony 2D.
Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is the one that I can only think of when it comes to modern films that are about animated cartoon characters in a live action environment and interacting with humans (not to mention the plotline is about the characters trying to solve a mystery and there being crime involved) but the animation on that one wasn’t done entirely in 2D. I remember the film combined cel-shaded 3D animation made to look 2D, photorealistic CGI, 3D animation, and I think there was puppetry during one scene and claymation-esque animation. There was some actual 2D animation for some scenes, but a lot of the 2D was done in cel-shades CGI. I thought that was a decent film and I liked the variety of animation styles in it, but I think Roger Rabbit was better in its plot and the zaniness in the animation. However, I think the bootlegging machine and the way Rescue Rangers depicted movie mockbusters was hilarious and well-done, but I think Rescue Rangers is only talked about for its cameos and meme potential and not the actual quality, compared to Roger Rabbit.
Recently saw The Wild Robot on Peacock, and I loved it. Now I kind of wish I was able to see it in theaters, but couldn't because of budget. I did enjoy the movie. I cried multiple times, especially when Roz remembered Brightbill at the end and saved all the animals from the cold.
A Royal Pain (2024). Pretty good, a very actor-y movie. It's in contention for Best Picture but probably a long shot. Kieran Culkin was great, doing his usual shtick as a manic fast talking charmer who is secretly very sad and broken.
Emelia Perez (2024). Another Best Picture contender, infamous online for one particularly wacky musical number. This movie was not good, but it's hard for me to even hate it because of how dull it is. Nothing happens. It's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Many industry insiders and critics seem to love this one, which to me is baffling.
Flow (2024). This one is in the running for Best Animated Feature. It's a Latvian production with no dialogue whatsoever, about a cat and other animals attempting to survive a mythic-tier flood in a world without humans which may or may not be earth. I really liked it, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea with how surreal and ambiguous it is.
“Why do you speak of certain reversals—machinery connected wrong, for instance, as being ‘ass backwards’? I can’t understand that. Ass usually is backwards, right? You ought to be saying ‘ass forwards,’ if backwards is what you mean."
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