Billy Chapel vs Waver Velvet

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It’s time for the ultimate clash between someone who is grounded in reality and someone who has long since dived headfirst into the realm of the magical. Billy can throw a mean fastball that could deal some serious damage but Waver has any number of magical tricks that could dismantle Billy right at the start. As a result it’s hard to see Billy lasting very long here. He’s just not in the same league as someone like Waver, even if I’m not the biggest fan of the guy. Waver Velvet wins.

The Expendables Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

This is definitely a film that you had to have seen around a lot back in the day. It got quite a bit of promotion because of how many big names it was grabbing. The concept was always solid as well with all the action going on. Well, the film lives up to the hype pretty well for the most part although if you’re watching some specific characters then you won’t be in luck here.

The movie starts with Barney’s squad of Expendables saving some hostages and destroying the terrorists. One of their members (Gunner) goes too far with this though and Barney is forced to take him off the team. He then receives a new mission for the team by the mysterious Mr. Church. The group has to head to Viena where there is a lot of strife going on right now. The people are suffering as a group of rogue American forces have conspired with the King to take the place over. The heroes have to take out General Garza which should effectively stop this movement in its tracks. If they do that they things can finally go back to normal. This is an extremely difficult mission though where the heroes will be heavily outnumbered. Can their band really take out a whole army?

The film starts off with a lot of action right off the gate which is good. I also liked how for once the heroes didn’t just drop their guns when the villains took a hostage. I’ve mentioned in the past how this is always a bad idea and the characters here seemed to know it. In general the Expendables are very reluctant to drop their guns which is good. If you do that then the villains can just take out the hostage and your group at the same time. We also got the “traitor” fairly early on with Gunner. Cracking immediately was not a good look for him although apparently it just tends to happen to guys who are in the field for too long.

We get the best scene in the film very early on though as Barney gets his assignment from Church and then Trench shows up. Both Church and Trench don’t really do anything for the rest of the film which is unfortunate but it was such a fun scene to have the 3 of them in the same room like that. The banter and hype levels in that scene where through the roof. It was only one scene but you could already see a solid dynamic between the characters.

That’s really one of the biggest strengths of the film. The characters all have big egos and are top notch in their respective fields. Only the best of the best can be Expendables and if you are in a position where you’re a rival or working for Church then you’re at that level too. So there’s a lot of tough talk throughout the film and it works well. The banter here is very strong and the writing is definitely on point. I don’t think the film would be nearly as good without that. Even the villains talk tough to each other the whole time. In this movie, everyone can talk tough and everyone can fight hard which makes for a good balance.

Then of course there is a lot of action throughout the movie as well. The gun fights don’t hold back and we also get a lot of close combat battles as well. The film never really runs out of explosions and fighting. The highlight fight would probably be Yin taking on Gunner since that felt like a real boss fight. Of course seeing the heroes beating up on the random minions is cool too and all but it’s always nice when you have a villain who can really fight back as well. The characters all have different fighting styles too which works out well so it’s not all the same kind of action scene throughout.

The movie has some decent themes as well. They may not be super memorable or anything but they work well enough with the scenes. Expendables is a film that moves fairly quick so you’ll be at the end of the film in no time. There isn’t a whole lot of down time between action scenes either. So as long as you’re enjoying the hype of all these characters looking so good then you’re definitely going to have a blast here.

While the movie is very intense, I would say a lot of the action is very stylized so it’s not too bad. It’s much more like John Wick than Halloween for example. So most of the scenes are over quick and I wouldn’t say they dwell on the violent scenes. The only scene that was a bit much is when Sandra is tortured by the villains through waterboarding. I definitely could have done without that as that’s always the kind of grit I’d rather the film just skips. We know these guys are villains and don’t really need to go any further than that. It hurts the film’s momentum a bit there.

That’s really the only issue I had with the film though. Beyond that you’ve got a fun cast and lots of action which is always a good combo. Barney works well as the main character and clearly has a lot of experience here. Without him getting the group set they probably would have been in for a rough time. You also get the impression that he is the glue that keeps the team together. He’s always got a quick comment ready to defuse any situation as needed. That’s not something that just anyone could do.

Christmas is a solid right hand man as well. I like his confidence and he may be the only character who surpasses Barney in that aspect. Christmas really isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and may be the best close quarters fighter in the group aside from Yin. You can always count on Christmas to get in there and get the job done. He also has the best working relationship with Barney and their banter is a lot of fun.

Now, if you are a fan of the Expendables as a team then you may be disappointed that quite a few of their members don’t do much. Aside from the main two who spend most of the film without the rest of the group, the only ones to do much of anything are Gunner and Yin. The rest are saved until the climax where they help out but the film is nearly over by then. For Yin, he’s a solid fighter but I was surprised that he wasn’t a bit stronger.

The whole time you figure that he is absolutely going to crush his opponent and instead he’s on the losing side. Perhaps that’s not so bad but as his first big fight you just expected him to do better. I suppose martial arts aren’t as handy when you’re fighting someone who is already an expert fighter in their own right but I still thought it would go down a bit differently.

As for Gunner, well I definitely didn’t like him. The guy completely cracked and the first thing he thinks to do is to join the other side? Nah, I don’t want someone like that on my side. That means you can absolutely never trust him again and so that really means that he’s an absolute liability. Once you go traitor you don’t really go back so easily.

As for the heroine Sandra, well she gets a lot of credit for being so tough under pressure. Ultimately she never betrays her ideals and also stays home until the very end. It may have been wise to leave but now she can proudly tell her people that she was here from start to finish. It was definitely not an easy journey either. The villains really gave her a tough time here. As for the villains themselves, well Garza got better by the end but he’s really not smart at all. The scene where he starts to give a big speech while surrounded by the other villains was a really horrible idea and you can immediately tell how that’s going to go.

As for Monroe, well he’s your classic villain leader who just wants a lot of power. Not much to say about him and I can’t say that I liked the guy at all. Posturing is all good and well to an extent but beyond that you need more of a big plan to stay in power. Even if things didn’t go great for the Expendables he still would have been doomed down the line.

Oh yeah there’s also a small romance subplot where Christmas finds out that his girlfriend is cheating on him. It feels like an extremely random subplot to be sure and that should have definitely ended the romance right away. There wasn’t much of a good excuse either. In their line of work the Expendables probably shouldn’t start a romance anyway since it might end badly though. At that point you should probably just fly solo because it’s such a dangerous profession.

Overall, The first Expendables film is pretty fun. It’s nice to get the nonstop action here as the heroes all show their stuff. I look forward to Church and Trench getting bigger roles next time though. They had the best scene here so imagine what they can do with some real screen time? The rest of the Expendables squad needs to get more action next time too though because you could really say that over half of this film is just the Barney and Christmas show. The others really got the shaft for the vast majority of the film.

Overall 6/10

Henry Poole Is Here Review

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Henry Poole makes for a very unique film and it’ll take you on a fun journey. I found Henry himself to be super unreasonable for most of it but the rest of the characters were solid enough. It’s a good drama film in the end even if it can be a bit long at times.

The movie starts with Henry moving into a new house. It’s a rather beat up old place and he considerably overpaid for it but he doesn’t seem to care. His real estate agent even offers to knock down the price but he declines. He then meets his neighbors and everyone seems reasonable enough, if not a little over friendly. One day a water stain appears by his wall outside though and the neighbor Esperanza declares that it is the Face of God. Henry is incredibly doubtful of this since it just looks like a normal water stain but pretty soon she is inviting lots of people from her Church to check it out. Henry sees how his house is quickly becoming a public attraction and he wants to stop it, but doesn’t really know how to do so. Also, why is he so uncaring about everything?

The film answers that question soon enough although you can probably guess it fairly early in the film. I can say that I can see why he’s not sweating the small stuff anymore and isn’t even trying to have much in the way of conversation. In his situation he may as well just do his thing and not worry about the rest. He has a lot of snacks, pizza, and the works. I’d say I would probably do something similar. No reason to break off human contact but I would definitely be getting a lot of pizza and snacks. At that point you may was well, there’s no reason not too.

I also don’t blame him for doubting the stain initially. After all, the whole thing did seem bonkers so I probably wouldn’t even humor everyone by touching it. As mysterious miracles start to happen to people though, I would certainly have given it a shot. It’s not like you have to do anything crazy either, just reach out and grab it. I think there’s a line between being healthily skeptical and being unreasonably so. Henry crossed that point after the lady with glasses tried the wall.

See, there’s a super market cashier named Patience who has really poor eyesight and needs thick glasses in order to see. So one day she touches the wall and she can see now. I don’ blame him for being skeptical of the congregation since they could just be lying but it’s clear that Patience was being honest there. At that point you really don’t have anything to lose.

He also takes things really far in the other direction like when he starts to yell at the crowd or beat up on his house. At the very least if you’re not going to buy into it then you have to be careful not to panic. The whole group breaking into his own every time does sound invasive so he should be pushing back there. Keep on building gates or something but wrecking your own house probably wasn’t the play.

Instead of trying to cover the stain with paint I would have just put a poster or a picture over it though. I feel like that would have worked a whole lot better and I don’t think the group would be as active about removing it. If they tried you could always nail it down the next time. All I’m saying is Henry had a lot of other options but I felt like he gave up rather early on.

As for Esperanza, while she meant well you do think she could have respected boundaries a bit more. She was always sneaking around and the fact that she had to “sneak” means that she knew she was doing something wrong. You would think that would be going against her faith since that’s something Henry didn’t want her to do. So in a way she’s not being quite as virtuous and honest as you would be expecting. Then you have the whole congregation getting in on this too so I guess they were all cool with this? I get that it was a big deal that doesn’t happen very often but I still don’t think that’s an excuse for breaking and entering.

The film does a good job with the humor and a lot of this is meant to be in good fun but of course you still have to think about it. It’s pretty fun to see Henry avoiding contact with everyone the whole time. The supermarket discussion with Patience for example definitely feels very one sided as she tries to make a friend. I can’t say I that I do much talking while at the check out line myself though. Definitely not really my speed. Patience means well though and is a solid character.

Then we get to the next door neighbor Dawn and her daughter Millie. Millie doesn’t talk anymore after a traumatic event from her past so now she just walks around and records people. Naturally this may be another case for the wall as well. Dawn and Millie are probably the only two characters that Henry is nice to from the start. Millie has a rough time of things but gets better as the film goes on. As for Dawn, she’s definitely very compassionate and does her best to welcome Henry into the neighborhood as well.

I would say Esperanza was best at this by bringing her empanadas over and everything. She really tried hard even when Henry was rather rude the whole time. Now the film does have a romance going with Henry and Dawn that I don’t think needed to be here. At one point Henry wonders if it’s selfish of him to be starting a relationship now and of course my answer would be an absolute yes. Look, you know the score here if you’re Henry and this is really something that will mainly help himself. I don’t see any way that this would be good for Dawn. This just puts her in a rough spot.

Now if Henry was in a different situation then fine, shoot your shot and try to have a good relationship. I don’t think this was the right time and place though. The romance is also a rather quick one and ultimately doesn’t change a whole lot in the film so I think it could have been skipped and wouldn’t have really created any issues. In the end you certainly won’t forget this film though. It’s a rather low key title through and through but the premise is just so unique that it works.

The movie portrays the wall as the real deal here but I’m definitely glad that it likely wouldn’t work out that way in real life. God can of course create miracles like this, but I don’t like the idea of applying it to a specific place or object. Some religions differ on this but in Christianity, we know that you can pray at any point, anywhere and God will hear you. You don’t need any intermediaries or anything like that to get the message across. The idea of the miracles only happening when you place your hand on the wall does introduce an intermediary though.

It would quickly become easy to start worshipping the wall if such a thing were to happen. That would become an idol of sorts and sure enough, people were leaving offerings under the wall. Of course it is meant to be left for God in this instance but I just don’t like the idea of this all being limited to one spot. Of course it can happen but this is why I don’t think it ever would. When God performs a miracle, it will be at a time and place we cannot guess. Not a specific location each time. Miracles happen every day too and we just can’t ever notice/know all of them.

Which if you don’t know the plot of the movie before watching, it’s fun to follow the scenes along and try to guess what genre this even is. At first when Henry kept on hearing flashbacks in his head, I figured he had some kind of supernatural power which is why he kept to himself. Like he is forced to keep on living all of his old experiences. Then I thought this was going to turn into some cult type film with Esperanza and her gang heading in. It takes a while to really know what kind of film this is.

You never think it’ll suddenly turn super dark or anything though. The film has a lot of solid comedic moments from the start so it doesn’t have a sinister flavor. I’d still say that the film was quite fun even through to the end. Some of the jokes can end up feeling more painful than funny like the nurse messing up on the shots a lot but the script was solid for each of those moments. A lot of the scenes are quietly funny too so it never feels like the film is really trying to make you laugh. It’s just witty and easy to follow along with.

As a final note, the film had a pretty solid soundtrack. There were quite a lot of songs in the movie and I thought they fit the tone rather well. The beat was very catchy and while I didn’t always catch a lot of the lyrics, they all seemed to represent Henry’s state of mind in the scene that he was in. I haven’t seen this many songs in a movie for quite some time and it was executed quite well here.

Overall, Henry Poole Is Here is a solid movie with some pretty good themes. The movie can be a bit long but ultimately it gets to accomplish quite a lot in that period of time. Henry is put in a tough situation so you can understand why he is so upset even if you don’t always agree with it. Of course it’s easy to say that you would handle the situation differently but it’s hard to say until it happens to you. Knowing that you will be safe after death plays a big role in being okay in this kind of situation though. Personally I would just try to maximize my enjoyment in the last days and have lots of junk food and pizza while trying not to think about it too hard. That’s only if I had definite knowledge of what was going to happen though. Most likely I wouldn’t be too convinced and would mostly still be living in a normal way, albeit with maybe a few more goodies than usual. Definitely check this out if you want to watch a more off beat kind of film.

Overall 7/10

Fafner Leorange vs Gray (Fate)

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Fafner Leorange is a strong Guardian but he did spend most of the series getting kicked around. Gray may not be the strongest Fate character around but she can still hold her own when the going gets tough. Her speed and power are both superior to Fafner’s. He may have a little more durability but it’s really not enough to save him when he will be the one eating the most attacks. Gray (Fate) wins.

For the Love of the Game Review

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Time for some Baseball action. This film also throws some romance into the mix but it’s probably the weakest part here. Ultimately this is a classic story of having to choose between your love for someone else and your love of the game. There’s a lot of drama over here and what is going on ends up being bigger than any single game.

The movie starts with Billy getting ready to pitch his final game. He’s gotten quite a bit older and can’t really throw the way that he used too. He’s just too old and he knows it, but he doesn’t want to leave the game either. He’s had a great career so his coach Frank is reluctant to pull him out but at the same time he does want to win. Billy can continue his career if he really wants to do so, but it will be on a different team. He reflects on his life as the game goes on and how it all led to this.

A big part of that is in his romance with Jane. So this one falls flat for a few reasons. One of which is that they hook up almost immediately without really knowing each other so both come off as really desperate. Jane tries to say later on that she isn’t usually that kind of person but it’s a bit late for that and then Billy certainly proves that he is that kind of person when he cheats on her later on. They just never really ended up connecting in the long run and so the romance wasn’t one that you could really root for.

Put it this way, if Billy was able to cheat on Jane after a single disagreement then he was never too serious about her in the first place. You just don’t cheat on someone like that, especially so quickly. It was really a terrible look for him. Jane really shouldn’t have even attempted to bridge the gap here after that. From the start another red flag was that their relationship was going to be a long distance one where they aren’t supposed to call each other or even think about each other. They were supposed to live their lives and just hang out when they’re in the same town. That doesn’t sound like a winning way to go through life now does it?

The Baseball scenes are fun though even if they never feel like the main part of the story. The final game in the present is certainly dramatic since Billy wants to go out on a high note. No better way than to try and pitch a shutout right? That’s extremely rare in any game and almost never happens. Billy also has a good team by his side. There’s the up and coming outfielder who initially has a hard time not messing up on the field but learns to tune out the media and just play ball.

There’s also the catcher Gus who was with Billy every step of the way. Billy would also fight to keep Gus on the team when the coach wanted to put someone else in. They made for a good duo and clearly had a great career even if the time was almost up there. So the movie’s got a lot of emotional stories going on and especially plots about how age always catches up to you. Sure enough, it’s not something that you can escape forever. Ultimately it will always return to make you retire at some point.

Jane’s daughter Heather also gets to appear for a bit. She’s used in a way to try and patch things up with Billy and Jane. Heather’s nice enough even if she starts out as a bit of a rebel. She can give Billy a hard time at first but warms up to him later on. Her role isn’t super large but she does appear near the end of the film in the current timeline and she’s now more of an outgoing person. Perhaps Billy had a positive effect on her there.

I would have liked to have seen some more Baseball action though. That’s really what I’m here for and I felt like it didn’t really get a big role. More Baseball games would have been nice, maybe take us through the whole season as Billy’s play began to deteriorate more and more. Particularly given the title of the film focusing on that would be best and by constantly seeing Baseball games in the flashback, it would also be a meta way to show the audience that it was still the first thing that he thinks about every day. It could further show Jane that she ultimately made the right choice in deciding to head out.

The writing’s decent enough here. You’ll be invested as the film goes on and the pacing is good too. It doesn’t drag out or anything like that either. I wasn’t a fan of the two main leads here but I did like the friend and the coach. Ultimately the coach especially has a tough job here since he needs to keep the locker room happy while also making the tough business decisions so that the team can keep on winning. The whole thing is impossible to keep impersonal here since everyone has known each other for so long. Still, he does a good job of it and is also careful to make sure Billy isn’t overdoing it.

Overall, The film’s main weakness is that the romance doesn’t really work. Both characters made massive mistakes with how the relationship was started in the beginning and then Billy ruined it beyond repair. The Baseball scenes were always great but they were just so few and far between. I really think we should have gotten more cool Baseball moments and that also could have let us meet more of the team. When you think about it, we didn’t actually know too many of the players.

Overall 5/10

Faker vs Yuri Otani

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Yuri Otani has a great automatic defense but ultimately that won’t be enough to tangle with Faker. Faker’s speed is enough to block all of Otani’s most powerful attacks and Faker can counter with her own moves. Yuri’s just lacking in the combat experience and overall abilities that you would need to fight a servant/pseudo servant class fighter here. Faker wins.

The Boy With the Green Hair Review

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Green hair may not sound like a big deal to you but in this film it is a very grave matter that causes the whole town to go crazy. The film sometimes takes itself a little too seriously here. The main character could have been better too but ultimately it’s a nice enough film that you should have fun with. In the end the main message here is that you have to watch out for peer pressure.

The movie starts with a kid being found by the police in a rather distressed state. He is completely bald and can’t seem to talk at all. They send in for Dr. Evans to see what’s up here. Evans is good with people in general and figures out how to get Peter to talk a bit. Evans does this by using an ice cream and some food he had ready for dinner. Peter begins to tell him a story about what happened here which takes up the rest of the film. See, Peter is an orphan whose parents died in the war. Peter was bounced around from home to home until he finally got to stay with Gramps.

Gramps is a very nice man who did his best to cheer Peter up. His only mistake here was that he didn’t have the heart to tell Peter that he was an orphan. Peter goes through school rather normally but people are still talking about war and he’s concerned. One day he wakes up with green hair and even meets a bunch of orphans in the woods. They tell him that he must stop the wars and Peter is unsure of what to do. The whole town is after him to get rid of the green hair and Peter isn’t sure of whether he can even get the message out to end the wars.

Now this plot takes you rather deep into the movie but I felt like I had to include the green hair part since it’s in the title. Surprisingly the green hair doesn’t come in until we’re almost halfway through the film though. A lot of the film is really Peter getting used to daily life and helping out Gramps. I wouldn’t say Peter is overly spoiled or anything but he hasn’t exactly had a stable living environment in a long time so you can certainly see why it is difficult for him to even get used to normal activities. He’s not exactly a happy camper but that’s where Gramps comes in.

Gramps has to be the standout character here because every scene is really him trying to make life happier for Peter. Gramps is absolutely an optimist and even has some fun stories. Early on we get a story involving Gramps being invited to the castle and shenanigans ensue. I thought for a minute there that the film was going to be filled with these skits of imaginary events but this was the only one. An odd way to start with the song and all though.

Then the film gets a little more serious once the green hair plot starts but almost to an extent where it feels out of place. At first nobody even notices the green hair and I thought this was intentional as the plot would be that it’s a big deal to Peter but nobody else cares. Well, it was just a delayed reaction because then everyone notices and starts panicking left and right. Who’d have thought that the green hair would be such a big deal right?

It all feels like a big overreaction. Chasing Peter around may make sense for the kids since they’ll do anything but once the adults also start weighing in on how Peter should shave his hair off and all, you find that a bit hard to believe. In large part this is because Peter was running around telling everyone to stop fighting wars and all..but he’s just a little kid. I wouldn’t even say he was being too aggressive about this. He wasn’t doing any protesting or yelling, the kid was just running around town talking to everyone. Usually the adults would probably just assume that he would get bored after a while and stop. So the reactions here didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Then there’s the scene with the kids in the woods. Personally I’m assuming that they’re all ghosts although I forget if the film makes that explicit. Otherwise..a bunch of orphans are just hiding out in the woods? I dunno if I can buy that one. Of course they tell Peter that he has to use his green hair as a symbol to change the adult’s minds and bring about peace which is great and all, but again you don’t feel like having green hair is going to have such a big impact.

The scenes with the kids are both so somber too. It doesn’t really match with the rest of the film which I would still consider to be rather lighthearted. By the time we get back to the present, I also don’t feel like this should have traumatized Peter nearly as much as it did. It was all a bad experience of course but to be so silent and distressed, I just thought things would be worse. Fortunately Evans did well so the characters still have a happy ending.

Evans also deserves a lot of credit here. His role is rather small but he does come through when it counts. Without him Peter would still be completely depressed. Evans also gave it to Peter plainly at the end. He didn’t pretend to believe the fantastic story or anything and just told him that he didn’t believe it. Evans still gave him a pep talk and made everything work out though. The police called up the right man for the job here.

Overall, The Boy With Green Hair is a decently good film. I think it could have been a little bit better if the whole green hair part was handled a little differently. The reactions are just all too extreme and it also takes a while for the green hair to kick in. I don’t think Peter should have cared about how his hair looked as much or the rest of the town to be honest. If they’re so nervous of the anti war message that a kid can take them down, then they really ought to prepare more or just switch sides. If the main character had been adult then these plots may have worked better like the job having a no green hair policy or something and that would be the dilemma about spreading the message. If you’re up for a decent slice of life adventure though then you should check this one out.

Overall 6/10

Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Review

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Time to look at a classic noir mystery film. This one has a pretty interesting plot about trying to fake a crime which is just as dangerous as it sounds. Probably not something you want to be doing on the regular but the reason behind it is interesting as well. The movie has its share of twists and turns as it comes to the ending and they all work pretty well. Definitely a must watch if you like noir.

So the movie starts with Tom accompanying his boss Austin to the latest execution. Austin wanted Tom to see this first hand to further explain why he was against capital punishment. The District Attorney has been bumping quite a few criminals off and Austin thinks it is so that he can make a play at being governor. The two certainly don’t like each other much which is understandable since it’s a big topic to disagree on. That is when Austin lets Tom in on his idea. He wants them to wait for a crime there there are no leads and then they will frame Tom for the crime. If he is convicted and sentenced to be murdered, then Austin will reveal that it was all a ruse and that might get the state to outlaw capital punishment. They’ll have photos and everything so this should be low risk.

Tom agrees to do it but quickly realizes that there will be a lot of complications here the whole time. For starters, this puts Tom’s engagement on the rocks because he is starting to act overly familiar with some other ladies as part of his cover. Tom probably should have just told Susan what was up from the start so this is all on him. Then with all of the fake evidence Tom’s position continues to look worse and worse. As long as Austin is ready as his safety net he should be good…but will that really work?

The writing here is very good which is absolutely critical since the dialogue is really what makes a film like this. I certainly didn’t see one of the final twists coming here. I also like how Tom’s very nonchalant about the whole court case until something happens later on. He doesn’t do anything to cause the judge to attack him or anything but Tom just doesn’t seem to care even though his life seems to be on the line. Since nobody else knows about his deal with Austin this makes sense and it makes for some fun moments.

As for the actual plan, I do think they took a decent amount of precautions here. The photos were definitely key and they should help answer a lot of questions. I think Tom took the “act” too far though. Like the scenes with him and the dancer where he is being quite aggressive were uncalled for there. He knew that the cops were around (presumably) but even so he should have tried to retain some class. I don’t blame Susan for being upset about the dinners either since there aren’t many explanations that would explain that.

Tom really didn’t do anything to make himself look good in her eyes. He has a lot of good banter with the cops and the DA but when it comes to his home life it definitely became a mess right away. So those scenes definitely hurt him and by the end he wasn’t one of the more solid characters. I’ll give Susan credit for handling things well though and not trying to make a scene. Clearly these events hurt her quite a lot but she never broke down. At the end of the film she also makes the right decision during crunch time too.

Then you have Austin who’s a solid character. His plan is a bold one but I do have to agree that it would strike a solid blow for his cause. It would really show why capital punishment is so dangerous and would have absolutely crushed the DA’s career. The DA was a solid character as well. He’s the antagonist but not a villain. The guy does think that he’s doing the right thing and the evidence was hard to overlook especially with how poorly Tom defended himself since he wasn’t taking things seriously.

It’s hard to blame the DA at all for going along the path that he did. As for the capital punishment debate, that will always be a tough one. On one hand, if you are falsely accused and die, you’re dead so that’s it. On the other hand it may be preferable to have a quick end than to rot in jail for 60 years before you finally get out when they find out you weren’t really guilty. In a lot of ways the first option just seems better and that’s before you even go into the logistics and all. Ultimately it’s for the best that we don’t have it but it will always remain as a tempting option as long as there are dangerous criminals who still exist.

Naturally a big part of why the film is so fun also comes down to the courtroom scenes. I always enjoy seeing those and this film has quite a lot of them. You get to see the DA make his case and Tom have to try and respond. While the heroes would take shots at how the DA was trying to win over the jury, I would say that he was just doing really well and they were sour grapes because they were so invested in this. I don’t blame them of course but it is without a doubt that I can say the DA did the best here and stole the show at least within the confines of the courts. That is his area of expertise after all.

The only weak parts of the film can be when Tom is under cover. As I said earlier he gets way too into the role if you ask me. Definitely seems like he’s having fun with it when he shouldn’t be. I also don’t even think we need some of the scenes there with the dancers performing or changing later on. Feels like the film added some unnecessary fanservice here when it could have been focusing more on the mystery. To an extent I imagine it was meant to show us their daily lives and how it was easy for the first one to be taken alone and murdered but if that’s the case then I’d like to see the management more and how they’re handling this. It seems like they’ve added 0 security since anyone like Tom can just walk right in through the front door.

Overall, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is a solid film. It keeps you engaged from start to finish with a solid cast and good writing at the ready. The whole film really ends quickly and the pacing is never an issue. I’d definitely recommend it, especially if you are interested in the court room and debates on capital punishment. From the start you may figure that Tom should have just said no to even trying out this experiment which is valid but it does make for a good story.

Overall 7/10

Fireproof

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It’s been many years since I saw Fireproof and the last time was before the blog days. It’s definitely an emotional film about two characters needing to fireproof their relationship before it’s all over. By finally turning himself over to the Lord, Caleb is able to make great strides here and so you can expect a fairly uplifting movie here.

The movie starts with Caleb performing more heroics as a firefighter. The guy is pretty much a hero to everyone within the town. His life is seemingly perfect when it comes to his occupation but the trouble starts when he gets home. His wife Catherine won’t talk to him all that much and tends to always be in a bad mood or have something sarcastic to say at the ready. Caleb tends to let his anger get out of control and so the two of them finally agree to have a divorce. Caleb’s father hears about this and tells Caleb to wait 90 days. He gives Caleb a challenge book with a different task each day and if their marriage isn’t back to being strong within that time limit, only then can Caleb walk away.

Caleb agrees to do it although he doesn’t think this will change anything. Meanwhile Catherine’s not buying into these nice things Caleb is doing all of a sudden as it feels fake and automatic. Instead she is unfortunately on the rebound with Dr. Gavin and the two are starting to get close. With poor advice from her friends, Catherine is convinced that this is the right way to go. Can Caleb win her over before it’s too late?

Whenever you have a drama film like this with a marriage on the rocks it can get a bit dicey because you have to get some big disagreements in there but you also have to make sure that neither character is too unlikable or you’ll find yourself rooting against them the entire time. Of course if that happens then it’s really all over. In this case I have to say that both characters were very unlikable so in most cases you probably won’t mind them getting knocked out of the running so you could root for other characters.

It would weaken/destroy the whole message of the film though so it’s good that didn’t happen. Ultimately Caleb’s father is able to use this experience to turn him into a Christian and ultimately help Caleb see the light about his mother as well. Caleb was always very rude to her throughout the film as he thought she was to blame for his parents almost having a divorce. He finally changes his tune once he finds out the truth but it was another reason not to like him for most of the film.

The best character here would be Michael though. He was Caleb’s best friend and gave a lot of good advice the whole time he was having these issues. Michael was always in his corner and it’s definitely good to have a friend like that. The rest of the firefighters were nice enough as well even if their roles weren’t quite as big. One guy certainly had a lot of confidence in himself and really did quite well in the hot sauce competition considering that he was using the real deal.

Of course Gavin would definitely be one of the worst characters here as he is just trying to get Catherine to be with him the whole time. Gavin comes across as a very desperate character and also one who is easily intimidated. He knows that what he is doing is not good but keeps on at it anyway. Definitely not a character you would expect to ever like.

Catherine does deserve a lot of blame here too though. You definitely shouldn’t be flirting or anything like that until the divorce is actually official. Moving on when this hasn’t happened is still cheating. She also does seem to come in with a bad attitude constantly although of course there were a lot of events that happen prior to the movie actually starting. So the implication is that she has been bottling this all up for a very long time and only now has it started to come out.

Then Caleb is always trying to act super innocent like he has done absolutely nothing wrong. As the film goes on this becomes more and more untrue to the point where it is laughable that he is telling everyone what a saint he is. The guy’s not even close and his neighbor even gets to see a lot of his outbursts. The opening outburst in the film where he drove Catherine to tears was a scene that it’s hard to really come back from though. There was no real way to root for the guy in the film after that and Caleb doesn’t really change until the final minutes of the film.

As you can tell I wasn’t big on the romance here but the overall message is still good. You shouldn’t take each day for granted when in a relationship and should always be trying to do something nice. Ideally both parties will be doing this but as long as you take care of your side then it should all balance out in the end. Then of course with Caleb becoming a Christian he’ll no longer be heading off to Hell in the end and presumably Catherine and the others will be joining in too. So it definitely makes for a very wholesome ending here.

Overall, Fireproof serves as a good reminder to always do your best and to be considerate of others. Even if you seem to be doing a great job at everything, it’s possible that you’re missing something. Caleb thought that saving lives and doing great on the job meant that he was automatically doing great at home as well but this wasn’t the case. You can’t miss out on the small things for the bigger picture. You want to have a good balance like Michael did in this film. He always had time to do well on the job and have fun at home with a nice dinner and companionship.

Doctor Sleep Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

While an improvement over the first film in the series, Doctor Sleep is still not a film that you’re really going to give much of a thumbs up to. It has some good ideas but really ends up wasting them and goes for way more grit than is needed. You will be engaged during any scene where the villains aren’t around but once they show up it becomes game over.

The story starts with a girl named Andi using her mental abilities to scar an evil predator when she is approached by another psychic named Rose. Unfortunately Rose is much more powerful and quickly subdues Andy and takes her to their cult. There she is brainwashed and forced to work for the villain group while also getting a big power up. See the villains have two goals. The first is to live and to do so they have to absorb the shine from people who have powers.

Effectively it’s like a person’s life force and only those with super powers have this. Then the other goal is to keep their ranks strong by turning others over to their faction. They have to keep a balance where the group isn’t too big and they also have enough prey left to absorb. It’s hard to say quite how many shiners there are in the world but if the villains are too successful they may start to run out of people to absorb and die anyway. After taking out a kid, the villain group sets their eyes in the main heroine Abra as they noticed her watching telepathically.

That takes us to the main character Dan. He has really been trying to keep a low profile after surviving the original events of the Shining and just wants a peaceful life. So even when Abra shows up and explains that there is a dangerous group out there, Dan refuses to help and goes back to hiding. Fortunately he is convinced to help by the ghost of his old mentor. This won’t be easy since he’s up against a complete group of fighters but Abra is tough in her own right so perhaps that will balance things out.

I was not a big fan of Dan though. The fact that he was so quickly going to abandon Abra was unfortunate. Sure he’s scared and all but when you know that a kid’s in trouble you’d think that you would try to help some more. At least teach her how to fight a bit or something. Instead he has to be guilt tripped into helping. He also doesn’t do very well with the willpower by the end of the film as the villains were just too much for him. Considering how much experience Dan has, I would have liked him to have been a bit more powerful here. Maybe walk into the room with a confident grin or something like that as he takes the villains down one at a time.

It would have been more satisfying than his having to be running all the time. At least at the end of the day he still does help out even if it was reluctantly at first. Abra’s a much more interesting character and it’s rare to have the heroes be more powerful than the villains. From the start we see that Abra is a lot more powerful than any of the villains. The only way they can keep up is to amplify their abilities with the magic drugs and even then they don’t last long.

Abra is a good guy so she doesn’t just go around murdering them but otherwise she may have been able to stop them in their tracks. She pull’s a good trick on Rose at one point where she lures her into the mind realm so Abra could then go into Rose’s mind and find out their plans. Rose is a fairly young kid but she has certainly learned how to do some creative things with her powers and illusion abilities.

If there were more films in the series I feel like there might be some foreshadowing for her going to the dark side soon though. She actively tells the villains that she hopes their death were painful several times and really relishes in her victories. Of course a large part of this is because she completely despises the villains for what they did to the kid at the start of the film so she wants them all to pay. Give her another year or two of training and she should really be completely unbeatable.

While the film has some action and they get to use their magical abilities, the film never quite goes into action territory. It’s unfortunate because I think this would have lent itself well to that kind of premise. The powers are easily weaponizable and then the villain group could have all gotten to have some fights with the heroes. Instead the only action scenes we get are very down ot Earth like fighting with a knife or something like that.

The battle with Dan and Rose is very anticlimactic for example. He played the matchup quite poorly and the scene of him getting drained just drags on for a long while. You know what they are building up to with Dan’s trump card but even that scene didn’t look quite as impressive as it should have.

Also, I was waiting for him to try the coffin technique on one of the villains. I figured this was foreshadowed with how close he was to using it on his old friend. If it only works on you once you’re dead then that’s a fair counterpoint to why he didn’t even try to use it but then he certainly needs more abilities at some point. Dan does well with crashing a car at one point though.

It’s nostalgic seeing the old mansion later on. While the Shining was pretty bad, the actual mansion was fun. I don’t think the house itself lives up to the hype at all though. For the most part all of the tricks are completely ineffective. In the end Dan really has to take things into his own hands because the house just wasn’t working. For instance there’s one scene where the river of blood shows up and the villain just smirks. The house is clearly not a threat to her at all and while I guess that almost feels like a twist I guess, you may as well have not had the mansion at all. You could almost call the mansion itself filler.

As mentioned earlier, any scene with the villains is awful though. They’re shown to be as demented as possible with their various ceremonies as they murder and brainwash everyone. The way they murder the child is particularly brutal as they mention the death has to be as painful as possible to absorb more shine. It’s definitely the kind of plot details that we did not need. I was not surprised that the kid dies since it seems like something this film would pull off but they went out of their way to make it as bad as possible.

Any scene with the villains trying to absorb the shine always drags on and on. The villains are not even remotely interesting and you just want them off the screen. Unfortunately for Abra she has to feel all of the pain as well thanks to her full synchro ability which is always something that you absolutely do not want to have. It ends up backfiring almost all the time.

Even from the start with Andi we quickly learn that her backstory is super grim dark. Even the scene of her taking down that one chump at the beginning can’t just be that she’s taking out a bad guy but we have to learn what kind. In general this is the kind of thing that can really hurt horror films in general. The more extra details you give to every scene, the more likely it is that you’re going to focus too much on the shock value and not get to the actual plot in time. This film certainly shows us that the world in which the Shiners live is a really depressing one and that just makes the film more depressing as well.

As Abra is the only really solid character here, I wouldn’t say that the writing or cast is all that good either. The film isn’t super violent all of the time at least but the kid scene certainly filled up the quota there. If the villains could have at least have had some semblance of a more interesting goal or character development then maybe things could have been different. As it stands, they really do their best to crush the film.

Overall, Doctor Sleep is a sequel that takes the series in a very different direction but still ends up failing. In a way that’s impressive. It beats the Shining as this film would at least have its interesting moments. If you cut the scenes with the Baseball kid out then that would help quite a bit. The score still wouldn’t be quite positive but it would win a few points. You just won’t have any fun in this film by the end of its run and for that reason you’ll want to give this one a big pass. If you want to watch a film involving super powers then it’s time to watch one of the Bleach films instead

Overall 1/10