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Radio Days Review

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Radio Days is definitely a film that suffers from just not being very interesting. It’s all about the radio and a bunch of characters who listen to it but the characters aren’t all that good and the narrator just ends up being annoying the whole time. The film ends up dragging a bit as a result. Now I’m not saying that the movie is awful or anything as it’s weak but not terrible. It doesn’t make any huge mistakes, it just never really gets good.

So the film follows a kid named Joe as he listens to the radio and just gets to live life a lot. He is a big fan of the Masked Avenger cartoon that would play over the radio. As the years go by he gets to experience war through the radio as well as songs and just about every program that is there. He feels like these times were a lot of fun, they were the simple days where everything just sort of popped out at you. There really isn’t much of a focus to the movie beyond that. I suppose as a subplot you also had Sally trying to work on her enunciation so that she can be a big radio star as well. Ultimately she does well for herself and even gets a lot of street smarts so the execs can’t fool around with her.

That’s probably what the film needed more of, a steady plot. The slice of life with no purpose only works when the writing is exceptional and the characters are great but I couldn’t say that here. Joe is your average kid in many ways so there isn’t anything really interesting about him. His family certainly have a lot of strict traditions like not playing music on loud during the Sabbath and all but the father of the household cracks real quick once he goes to meet the neighbors. So much for his conviction there.

I also think he could have let Joe know that he was a cab driver. That’s not a crazy profession by any stretch so when he was being secretive I thought it was going to be something really embarrassing. I suppose he just had a lot of pride. Then Sally was decent enough once she got wise to all the scams around her. I thought the movie missed an easy lay-up by not having everyone get locked out on the roof though. That would have been a fun tribute to an earlier scene.

The Masked Avenger serial sounded fun at least. The concept sounded fun and superheroes are always in season so who wouldn’t enjoy that right? I would have liked to have focused on that a bit more since it would have been more interesting. You’ll just struggle about things to talk about here because all of the stories are so scattered and short that there is no focus. In general I do think stories need to have a strong focus because without them they will just get lost and you don’t want that.

What this film could have done to improve things would have been to have had Joe really have to deal with some challenges during the radio days. Give us a concrete plot like he’s earning money to buy a Masked Avenger figure and the whole film is about that as the radio plays in the background. You could probably tone down the narration a bit so we can get the plot rolling more. Good narration can absolutely enhance a film but in this one it just felt like the movie was stalling for time.

It just wasn’t very interesting much like the rest of the film. I didn’t grow up with the radio so any sentimental value that could have boosted the film with that didn’t work for me. Instead I was just waiting for the film to really get rolling. If nothing else at least it is always fun to see how the city looked back then. What has changed over the years and what hasn’t. I was never one to go outside on New Year’s Eve at midnight to watch things happen live, I prefer using the TV but it is fun to walk around in the morning and see how empty everything is.

Overall, Radio Days was a swing and a miss for me. While the lack of a plot/focus did keep the film from exposing the bad writing too much (Because what we got usually felt a little suspect) it also meant that the film had no real upside. It would be hard for me to describe the plot to someone because it was basically nonexistent. By the time you finish watching the film you feel like nothing has really happened at all. It’s like you were along for the ride but on a journey that didn’t actually have a destination. So that’s why even though the film doesn’t make any big mistakes, I would say to stay away from it. There just isn’t anything here for you and it’s also why this review is a bit on the shorter side because there’s only so much that you can say about it.

Overall 4/10

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers Review

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Halloween has returned with another stinker. While the bar for Halloween movies is already underground, this one did manage to still be a particularly weak installment in the series. We’ve got more action with the cult that is awful and somehow the murders here felt even more intense than in some of the other installments. It is fairly relative by this point I’ll grant you that. Either way, I highly recommend staying far away from these film and definitely away from this one.

So the film starts off with a prison break as Jamie tries to escape with her kid from Michael Myers and the cult. She barely makes it out but gets murdered by the barn anyway. Her kid Kara gets to live a normal life for a while or as normal as it can be but unfortunately her new family are all rather crazy. The film really goes out of its way to make the family as unlikable as possible with the father being abusive and the rest not being able to do much of anything. You have the little kid who is on his way to being the next psycho with his knife skills. All you need to know about these guys is that most of them are completely doomed.

Myers is on his way and the only ones who can stop him are Loomis and Tommy, a kid who has made it his life’s work to stop Michael Myers from terrorizing anyone else. Naturally nobody else is taking the threat seriously. Half the town thinks that Michael Myers never existed and the others figure that he’s dead. Everyone treats the whole thing as a big joke to the point where they are reinstating Halloween and everyone is dressing up in Michael Myers costumes now. The town really isn’t very smart, you’d think either way they wouldn’t be glorifying the guy at least.

Well, it’s all going to be easy pickings for Myers now. For once he feels more like a lackey though which is odd. So the film introduces some new concepts here and one is that there is a whole sacrifice system behind Myers’ madness. See, he only murdered people when the right stars are aligned and you can sacrifice someone to him so that he spares your family. It would have been nice if the cult was just crazy and Myers shows up randomly anyway but he actually does feel like their minion here.

There’s a scene early on where the cult basically summons him to take Jamie down. Myers walks out of one of the office rooms as if he worked there. It’s weird to see him as a minion and it take away from him being the big boss that he usually is. It was a very odd move and one that didn’t do the film any favors. Myers is still going to get wrecked by the end and his regeneration and super strength are not enough to save him. He is definitely a character who isn’t all that great.

As for the cult, well they’re awful. The opening scenes have a long drawn out sequence where they are preparing a baby to be sacrificed and so they’re putting marks on him and such. It’s all rather awful and you’re just waiting for that scene to end already. If the film was trying to make you a bit eery from the jump then it succeeded but at the detriment of the film. The cult guys also have no business being here. They were never supposed to be the focus and yet they do a lot here. There’s even a new guy who shows up…I wonder if he could be the mysterious man in black??

Then we have the heroes. Well Tommy is decent at least. It would just be nice if he communicated more and had some kind of a plan beyond just messing around and finding out. This was his life’s work so shouldn’t he have some heavy artillery or gadgets or some kind? It felt like he was going in blind each time and that’s not a good idea against someone like this. Perhaps he thought that Myers really wouldn’t put up more of a fight than the average dude but since he knew about the prophecy and all that just seems like a very illogical thing to think.

At least he does get some good moments in like clubbing Myers with the bat and all. I can give him some credit here but I was still underwhelmed considering that he basically lived for this. In comparison I can cut Loomis some more slack because the guy is old by this point and he really thought that he was done with all of this. Instead he’s being forced into yet another confrontation and this was one that he was definitely not ready for. It’s always nice to see Loomis but when you think about it he really didn’t do much here.

As for Kara, well I guess she’s an okay main character for the most part. She’s better than some but ultimately doesn’t stick out much beyond being the next target. Kara seemed to have a little less character than previous heroines and that’s because the film was busy with so many plots. There just wasn’t a whole lot of time for her. Maybe for the best though because that meant we didn’t have to have too many scenes with her family. I doubt those would have been very good.

At least the film avoids one cliché which is that when the heroes knock the villain to the ground they suddenly walk away. This happens in Scream when they knock someone down and drop the knife and just about every other series. There’s nothing worse than the main character getting the edge and suddenly her “friends” show up to stop her saying that he’s had enough or he’s dead already. Look, we’re talking about a serial killer who has a massive body count. There is no “enough” yet, you gotta put him down. Then on the other hand if he’s already dead, what’s the problem in landing a few more hits? So when Tommy kept on whacking Myers with the bat until he was literally changing shape, that was the best way to handle it. Even if he regenerates, you’ve bought yourself some time.

Overall, There really isn’t anything else good to say about the film. It’s really just mindless slaughtering as Myers goes around and takes everyone out. The plot is absolutely secondary and you can tell with how halfheartedly they handle the plot with the cult. The whole film is really about shock value instead and you can immediately see this with how drawn out and extended the Jamie death scene was. It was like he murdered her 5 times over with how graphic that was. He definitely was salty about how the last film went but we really don’t gotta see that. Slashers are usually awful but this one stands out even among them. You’ll want to keep it moving and forget that this one existed.

Overall 0/10

The Wolfman 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

Oof, this is one of those films where you figure that it’s not going to be good from the start. It’s going for the ultra violent route to the Wolfman mythos and in the meantime you also have a romantic rebound going on which never helps anything. I think there are parts of this story that can be a little interesting but at the end of the day there isn’t much going in its favor. I’m not a big fan of the setting for starters and beyond that there aren’t many good characters. The film is also very mean spirited which doesn’t help anything either so it becomes a bit of a wash.

The movie starts with Lawrence coming into town after his brother was brutally murdered by something. Everyone has their own theories but it was either a wild animal or..something supernatural. Lawrence takes care of business but he ends up getting bitten and now he is doomed to be the next Wolfman. In an old town where everyone is superstitious, that’s not a good thing. Additionally Lawrence has little to no control over this transformation either so he could really end up hurting someone. Can he find a way to either stop his transformations or get out of town?

There is a lot of mystery in the air throughout the film but at the end of the day there isn’t much Lawrence can do for most of it. When he’s not being assaulted by the villagers or manipulated by Sir. John, he’s being strapped to a chair and tortured by the doctor. That had to be the worst scene in the film by far. So this doctor decides that he will use shock therapy to save Lawrence and the way he does this is to continuously electrocute him until Lawrence can feel his mind slipping away the entire time. Lawrence can barely focus or even think rationally by this point so he starts hallucinating.

I should mention that the film loves its fake jump scares and hallucinations. Get ready for his mind to play tricks on him in rather violent ways. I suppose that’s the best way to escape the actual pain in the real world but I still feel like this whole sequence had no purpose being here. Of course he will end up murdering this guy viciously in his Wolfman form but did we need Lawrence to go through all of that? I personally don’t think he deserved it.

Not to say that Lawrence is a great guy or anything but it was all so extreme…much like the rest of this film. You will be hard pressed to find a Werewolf film more violent than this one. They really wanted to show people getting ripped apart and eaten alive. One poor guy is basically hung up with what’s left of him for the world to see and that guy at least had some experience with werewolves. The whole movie felt rather mean spirited and even the dead couldn’t know peace.

So at the start of the film Lawrence’s brother was brutally murdered and his fiancé is the one who was pushing for Lawrence to arrive so that he could help out. She must be in a lot of deep distress over this tragedy right? Well…she falls for Lawrence rather quickly and they have a romance. How could this possibly happen? Rebounds are bad enough as it is but this one had two reasons for why it should not have happened at all. The first is fairly obvious which is that she’s now going out with the guy’s brother. You never rebound with family, that’s just awful. The second is the circumstances of the brother’s death which you think would add some extra time to how long you wait before entering another romance.

So the romance here was particularly bad without a doubt. It really hurt the character of both Lawrence and Gwen. I can’t say that I liked either one of them by the end. Gwen doesn’t do a whole lot beyond the romance either. Then for Lawrence, well he goes through a lot for sure and I can’t say there are many things he could have done differently but he probably should have dashed out when he had the chance.

John is the most interesting character because he’s rich, aloof, and a little odd. He knows how to use a gun and isn’t afraid to threaten the entire town with it. You can tell that nobody’s going to be messing with this guy that’s for sure. As the film goes on he gets shadier and shadier but is ultimately the character who adds the most to the movie. At least he always takes over any scene that he’s in. Then we have Inspector Francis but I feel like he’s fairly generic. The guy basically admits that his skills aren’t great so he waits at the pub until the Wolf makes his next move. The location of the pub is quite convenient for him and all but he’s still not putting in a lot of the work personally. I expected him to have a much more active role in all of this.

I at least enjoyed one exchange between him and Lawrence where they traded insults during the entire conversation. Neither one of them was going to back down in the slightest and it was nice to see. It ended up being a stalemate but I always like it when a character doesn’t meekly just take the insults or anything like that. Lawrence wasn’t going to take it and the Inspector has a lot of experience on his end.

Overall, The Wolfman doesn’t really add anything to the mythos. Instead I would say that it’s one of the weakest installments in the series. It’s ultra violent without much reason behind this and the story is fairly basic. You could tell that the story was not the highest priority for the writers compared to just making this as gory as possible. There really isn’t much reason for the film to exist at all. The torture was also gratuitous and all the shock value moments just serve to weaken the movie. I would absolutely recommend giving this one a skip. You’re better off with just about any other film about a Universal monster and considering that Dracula is around, that’s saying something. There are some worse films out there to be sure like Frankenstein but it’s best that you don’t seek those out either.

Overall 2/10

Tiger & Bunny: The Rising Review

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All right, we’re back in action for another Tiger & Bunny movie adventure! This time it’s a brand new story with updated visuals and everything so it’s already showing some different improvements there. I would say this movie is definitely better than the first one. It’s fairly low key and does suffer from throwing the giant opponent who can’t fight back cliché in the climax but aside from that you can tell that it’s trying this time.

The movie takes place after the show so Tiger’s powers are all but gone at this point since he can only use them for super short amounts of time. He and Bunny are now a part of the second division for heroes so in a way you could call them the B team. It doesn’t earn a lot of money though and Bunny can’t help but feel like they should get back into the A league. The test is coming up soon but things take a spin when corporate gets involved. The companies are all bought out by Mark and he wants to change things up. He’s axing the second league and is now pairing Bunny with a new hero called Golden Ryan. Tiger is left out and he’s starting to wonder if he should retire. First he’ll have to stop a new villain group that is re-enacting tragedies from an old play. Can he do it?

For the main plot, it definitely feels like Tiger has to struggle with confidence issues a lot. In the main show when he was losing his powers that became a big thing and now it is resurfacing with how he’s holding Bunny back. He really needs to get his powers back to 100% or this is probably going to keep on happening with him. He handles things mostly well though and tries to make sure that Bunny is set up at least. Although I think the right move would have been to make more of a scene and convince Bunny to stick to the B league. Call Mark’s bluff and maybe he would have gotten Tiger back to the A team.

As for Bunny, well as always he is the big standout hero here. We see how he spends a lot of his free time helping out the orphans and making sure that they have a lot of stuff. Now that’s high quality hero behavior and he even gets them all tickets to the biggest party of the year. Bunny is all about giving back to the community now and you love to see it. He’s also still the top strategist among the heroes and easily the most powerful. He may never end up being the main character as long as Tiger is here, but you couldn’t ask for anyone better as the #2.

The rest of the heroes don’t get a ton to do for the most part. You have Sky High who is still one of the top heroes and he gets to be in the fights. There isn’t much of a character development arc needed for him though. Same for Dragon Kid but it was nice to see her fight more here. We didn’t get to see her have too many serious battles in the main show. She’s always a loyal ally and a fun fighter to have at the ready.

Blue Rose is still acting like a tsundere a lot but fortunately she always makes the right calls at the right times. I was glad that she wasn’t sidelined for the whole fight with trying to put out Fire Emblem’s flames because that would have been a shame. She still gets less action than the others but does contribute in the big fights. Rock Bison has a bit of a subplot where he isn’t feeling like he sticks out very much. So he starts ripping off other characters’ catch phrases and everything. It’s not a good look and starts to just put more pressure on him.

I feel that this plot still isn’t actually finished yet so we’ll see if the next season picks up on it. I feel bad for the guy but at the same time it is true that he is usually lagging behind the rest and taking a lot of Ls. Then we have Origami Cyclone who wants to be able to fight straight up instead of always going for surprise hits from behind. It was an interesting plot although there wasn’t a lot of time for it. Ultimately he did get to try fighting up close and personal but for the most part the opponents here are just a little too high tier for that to work very easily.

Now onw hero who does get a big role here is Fire Emblem. In the show he was easily the worst character as he was always messing with Rock Bison no matter how much the guy told him to knock it off. It was very in line with a character like Puri Puri Prisoner or even Master Roshi with how he would get physical. So fortunately this film doesn’t have any of that as it decides to tackle his plot on a more serious note. Of course that brings up issues of its own and I can’t say it’s the kind of plot that I’m a fan of.

It’s a bit late in the game to try and save his character. Hopefully if he keeps the development then in the next season things could work out but sometimes it’s just a bit too late. Like I never got around to liking Gajeel even though he’s been a hero for over 10 years now. Sometimes it’s just too late and then it’s all game over. Here Fire Emblem is taken out by the villains for most of the film so he’s indirectly causing another hero to be indisposed the whole time and then when he does return for his big fight…he gets taken out rather quickly. I was at least expecting a big win for him. I can’t say that Fire Emblem really works yet and we need more screen time to see if he has really changed or if he’s just going to be acting the same way when he returns.

Finally we have Golden Ryan who is a new hero who has shown up and gets a good amount of hype here. He has gravity powers which is always super useful in any context. I love gravity powers and consider it to be one of the most high-end elements that you can use. He does look really strong here too and automatically became the second strongest hero after Bunny. He can be rather arrogant and all but I’m liking this guy so far. He add a lot to the dynamic and doesn’t feel like just another guy. Actually enhancing the dynamic and changing things up is absolutely what you want to strive for with a new character.

As for the new corporate guy Mark, well he’s just your classic shady CEO. The guy’s so over the top that you will keep wondering whether he is super evil or just shady. Sometimes the line can be hard to distinguish in these things. The rest of the supporting characters are around as well and it’s always nice just seeing everybody again. The movie does have a huge issue with power levels though.

So you’ve got a few villains here, the 3 main ones and the big mastermind. The movie doesn’t bother to give the main 3 names but it was nice to have a full squad. My problem is that none of them should be all that tough. Take the disc throwing girl. She has to go up against Bunny and Ryan which should be the worst matchup for her. Gravity will negate her discs and Bunny has the speed to catch her no matter how many illusions she has. The film has to actively make Bunny and Ryan look awful for her to last so long.

Then you have a guy with super voice going up against Bison, Cyclone, and Sky High. That’s all this dude has, a super sonic voice and yet he’s crushing them with ease. I’d like to see some team work here or even some common sense like dodging the attack and countering with a quick energy hit from Sky High. It seems to me like this really shouldn’t be asking too much. How are these villains who have never really fought before taking on seasoned veterans?

Finally we have the third guy who is a literal old man with a staff and he is crushing Fire Emblem, Dragon Kid, and Blue Rose. I liked his memory abilities which are kind of OP but in hand to hand he should be getting crushed. It is a running gag that the pro heroes are super weak, what with their having trouble with random bank robbers the whole time. Yes, we get that scene again here as the opener where the entire cast of heroes can’t beat one random punk. It’s extremely embarrassing at this point and shows how low tier the fighters are.

I have to blame a good amount of this on the writing though because it just doesn’t make any sense. At least the final boss has a giant form where he’s huge and everything. It may not make for an interesting battle scene but you can see how he would be putting up a fight. That’s the kind of energy that we should be seeing. While I thought the fights didn’t make a lot of sense, I will at least say that the villain motivations were good. I liked how the film executed the reveal on who the mastermind was and why they’re doing this. I thought the motive was quite sound and that goes a long way for a villain. Same for the other 3 who were working for the leader.

So that part was good. Lunatic even gets to appear for a bit but the role was mainly filler here. He doesn’t actually contribute anything to the story except to appear a bit for the fans. It’s really just a cameo that comes out of nowhere, but I appreciate it all the same. As I said earlier, the animation is also greatly improved here which is good. It’s still not going to hold its own against many of the more mainstream anime titles but at least now I can say that it looks pretty good. The soundtrack is still on the forgettable side though.

Overall, It’s nice to have another movie for the series. Even if the stakes might be a little higher here than in the first film, I would say that it still feels like more of a calm movie. Maybe it’s just because you never feel like they’re all in a lot of danger. It still executes just about everything on a higher level than the first film. It’s also nice that each of the heroes at least got a bit to do here even if it wasn’t much and we got to follow them down their paths. I could see some of these plots continuing in the future as well. So if you’re already in the series then this is a good movie to check out and see the characters. You’ll probably be a bit lost if you jump straight into this one though.

Overall 7/10

Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning Review

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It’s time to check out a film with a very unique style here. See, most of the film is just recapping parts of the TV show without even upping the animation and then you have some new stuff towards the end. I always feel like it’s a bit lazy to do things both ways. Whether it’s framed as a merged movie like Madoka or a movie split into episodes like Demon Slayer, you’re just doing the same thing twice. If you’re going to handle something twice then I want a completely different animation going in there and some changes to the story like how Super handled the Resurrection F part. It may not have been completely different but you didn’t really feel like you were watching the same thing twice. Still, as a stand alone film I suppose it holds its own but there’s not much reason to watch it over the show.

The movie begins by introducing us to the world of heroes which has become heavily commercialized. Various companies own the rights to the various heroes and they all perform as best they can in order to rise up the ranks. Tiger is old news at this point and his company is going under but fortunately he is bought out by a big company that wants to pair him up with the up and coming prodigy, Bunny. Bunny is a modern hero who is completely different in every way from Tiger. Tiger believes in secret identities and doing whatever it takes to save people while Bunny is more by the books and lets everyone know his true identity. Can they put their differences aside to save the world?

Well, this isn’t really a “Planet in danger” kind of scenario but that sounds cool at least. So in readapting the first few episodes you have the duo going up against a giant statue and they meet the other heroes but the big threat comes when a guy shows up who is a big thief. Robin is his name and speed’s his game. He is incredibly elusive to the point where all of the heroes teaming up are having a tough time keeping up with him. It’s almost like he’s mocking them…but that can’t be right…can it? This is another obstacle where teamwork may have to be the answer. That’s what you’d think anyway.

So, aside from the fact that readapting something is a bit iffy, this does work as a stand alone movie to the general audience. So if you haven’t seen the show before then you should be able to understand what is happening here well enough. It’s all about superheroes and fighting crime. It’s not too complicated or anything so it works out. The pacing is decent as well. Now your first tip off that something isn’t right may be with the animation. The movie doesn’t look great, and that’s because it just looks like the TV show most of the time which I already wasn’t very impressed with.

The movie feels at least 5-6 years older than it actually is because you had movies that came out a lot earlier in the 90s that look better than this one. So you can’t count on the visuals to hold it up. Additionally I don’t think the soundtrack is great either. There aren’t too many real memorable tunes. What that means is this feels a bit like a low budget adventure and the story/characters have to hold it up.

And to an extent I do think it works. For example I wouldn’t call this a bad film or anything. It’s not very solid but it is “good” and worth watching. I could recommend this to anyone wanting an action title. I would recommend a long list of other titles first but at the end of the day I wouldn’t be deterring anyone from watching this. It’s fun enough and does the job of keeping you busy for a little while but of course I am hoping that the series can hit the next level in the future.

The villain, Robin is okay at best but he mostly does good by relying on the heroes making constant mistakes. We find out that his ability is actually rather great. He can swap places with anyone and that’s such an overpowered ability for a verse like Tiger & Bunny where nobody is super strong like that. Right off the bat I had a bad feeling about the whole thing because there’s no way this guy should really lose. As long as he plays it smart that is but Robin makes a lot of mistakes and fumbles the ball. It was still fun to see the heroes strategizing and trying to find out ways to stop him though. There’s just not much to Robin beyond the chase.

As for the main characters, they’re decent. I like Tiger well enough as a good hero who wants to save the day no matter what. My only problem with him can be that he seems weak sometimes. Considering how good his powers are, he should be doing a lot better. He can increase his skills many times over with his power and yet he is still being outmaneuvered the whole time. He didn’t do so well against a normal bank robber near the beginning.

Bunny is still my favorite character here. The guy has very concrete goals and won’t be giving up until he has achieved them all. You want someone with that kind of focus on your side for sure and he is good at strategy. You could even say that he steals the show by the end of it over Tiger. It’s not surprising since that’s how things played out in the show as well. He can be a bit mean/rude but that’s just how he rolls.

The rest of the heroes don’t get time to do too much here. As usual Fire Emblem is annoying, Rock Bison seems way too weak, and the others are generally just not super effective even if they mean well. It was nice seeing Blue Rose talking tough here since this is before she started to weak around Tiger. The scene of everyone meeting up to introduce themselves to Bunny was a solid addition by the film. It may not have gone over well but it shows that everyone made the attempt which I think was a good idea.

That said, there isn’t a whole lot to discuss here. In part because the film is mostly recap but also because the story is very by the numbers. From the general plot you can mainly guess how the film will play out. I’d say the only twist would be how they deal with Robin and I was a fan of that. The heroes didn’t handle things too well for most of that fight so at least they had a plan by the end of the movie.

Overall, Tiger & Bunny is best experienced by watching the show since you can then seamlessly continue to the next adventures. You always could watch the movie and then skip the episodes in the show but it feels like more steps compared to just watching the season as you usually would. Go with your gut on this though and I’ll have a review for the sequel up shortly. Then we can really see how that one stacks up and if it takes the franchise to new heights.

Overall 6/10

Narrow Margin Review

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

The original Narrow Margin was a lot of fun and this movie is a blast too. It’s always a good idea to have a film take place in a train because there is so much that you can do with the concept. You better believe that this one makes the most of it. You’ll be hooked from start to finish and that is the sign of a great movie.

So things start off with Carol being set up on a blind date with a rich guy. She figures this is fun enough and even follows him when the guy has to go to his room. He’s quickly bumped off for double crossing a powerful criminal mastermind though and Carol goes into hiding. A guy named Robert then shows up and explains that they need her testimony in order to put the criminal away for good. It won’t be easy of course and she will be in tons of danger but the villains aim to silence her anyway even if she says no. So Carol very reluctantly plays ball but in fairness she doesn’t have much of a choice. Once they get on the train, it should be clear sailing except that the villains have managed to get on as well. This could get dicey now.

Now there is a decent amount of set up before they get on the train so even if that’s where all of the big action is, it’s nice that the film sets things up rather carefully. You already have a good idea about the characters before they get on the train. Robert is set up as a very smart guy right from the jump and one who isn’t easily deterred by his boss. If Robert thinks that the best thing to do is get Carol on the stand then he’s going to do everything necessary to get her on board.

He’s up against a ton of opposition and the odds aren’t in his favor so that’s part of what makes it all very impressive. You can count on Robert to get in there and stay strong at all times. There is one point where two villains show up just to threaten Robert for a while and he’s able to continue the conversation the whole time without backing down or appearing to be afraid. It was a super tense conversation so just holding his own there was really good. A lot of other characters would not have been able to do that under similar circumstances.

The villains are also written pretty well. While the mob boss doesn’t appear much after the initial scene, I thought it was a very good entrance. He certainly kept his lackey afraid all the way until the end and he was in control the whole time. The guys he sent to intimidate Robert also did good and were quite good at their job. Even the two who pretended to be cops and cornered Robert at the stall did good. While most of these villains were ultimately one shots or characters who never stood a chance, they felt like real villains.

Then you have Carol who very wisely doesn’t want to have any part in this. I don’t blame her because it never seems like the witness protections are very good and this isn’t something that she signed up to die for. Robert even admits that he can’t totally protect her here but ultimately once the villains have Carol in their sites, she really has to do this. If they’re going to bump her off anyway then she may as well get them behind bars right?

So the choice was made for her in this case but otherwise I absolutely understood why she didn’t want to take the stand. Throughout the movie you also have traitors, conspiracies, and a lot of twists so you really can’t trust anyone. The movie spreads out the twists quite well and so you even still have another one near the end. Everyone is more than they appear to be and the movie did a really good job of showing that.

At the end of the day I have a lot of praise for the film because the writing was so great. It’s a very engaging movie that is written as if it was one of the older ones. There is even a touch of humor like when the fat guy walks in which is a homage to the old film and also with Robert’s final scene with the villains. It was the ideal ending and really helped to wrap up a film that was already very strong on all sides. I didn’t really have any issues with the movie and it has a considerable amount of replay value.

This is the kind of film that usually wouldn’t get a sequel but I think it would work out very nicely in this case. Robert feels like he could serve the role as the main character in other adventures because he’s quick on his feet and is strategic. Those are two qualities you always need in a main character and given his job, you could have another big story with other crime bosses. Perhaps you could even have this guy try to get revenge. It would be difficult for the sequel to match up to this one but I’d like to see the attempt.

Overall, Narrow Margin is a film that you should absolutely check out. It’s a great thriller with a lot of really solid characters. The action scenes are handles well and there is always a lot of tension with all of the characters running around the train. The train is quite large after all so there is danger around every corner and no easy way out. It’s part of the appeal of the location because then you really have to use strategy. Usually the villains aren’t going to just shoot everyone on the train and so that gives the heroes a chance as they try to blend in and last a bit longer. I’ve never been on a big train like this before but it always looks interesting.

Overall 8/10

Misery Review

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

Nobody wants to be trapped and at the mercy of a stranger. It just feels dangerous even if the person at the other end isn’t absolutely bonkers. Of course for a horror type film you know that this will be even worse for the main guy. Misery is a film about a guy having an absolutely miserable time so you will certainly feel bad for him. There just aren’t too many avenues for escape.

The movie starts with Paul wrapping up the draft for a new book and heading back home. Unfortunately he is caught in a snow storm and nearly dies but is saved by a nearby resident known as Annie. Her house is in the middle of nowhere unfortunately and she claims that the phone lines are down but people will come eventually. We know this is a lie but Paul has no choice but to believe this for a while. It ultimately ends up getting more and more obvious that she is leading him on though as Annie begins to act rather insane the whole time and gets more and more drastic. Paul can’t walk so escape will be difficult. Can he survive this experience?

Now I think the film definitely does deliver on giving you a situation where you can see how Paul is rather helpless. A lot of times in horror films you can do a lot of backseat driving and keep wondering why the lead is making all of the wrong decisions all the time. It’s usually quite valid too I might add. For this film there is less to criticize the lead on because there just isn’t a whole lot that he can do. He literally can’t walk so that removes most of the escape options. You can either try to just do everything Annie says and hope she doesn’t do anything drastic or you can be hostile from the start and use everything at your disposal.

Paul mainly goes with the first option but Annie just keeps getting more and more crazy until this just won’t work. You can’t really please someone who is insane for very long. It’s just not going to work and that’s what he find out the hard way here. So he handled things reasonably well, perhaps he could have done some things differently but it’s hard to say if the outcome would have been better at all. For example, when Annie drove off maybe he could have just left the house entirely, but it’s risky and even if he did pull it off, he would be a sitting duck if he didn’t get far enough by the time she returned.

On the other hand, without being able to move or do much, the film also doesn’t give you a lot to watch as the viewer. Paul is trapped in the same room for most of the film and I wouldn’t say it’s very fun. Also, Annie goes quite far with breaking his ankles and really putting him through the wringer. The film doesn’t show a lot of violence beyond the one foot breaking scene which was rather disturbing but it’s all still rather painful.

Where the film falters for me is that this just isn’t a very fun movie. With Paul being rather helpless for most of it, you just have to watch Annie be super crazy as she keeps threatening Paul and forcing him to do things that he would rather not like burning his books or writing a sequel to Misery. Paul is eventually able to manipulate her but in the meantime it’s just annoying whenever she is on screen. You also know right off the bat that the sheriff isn’t going to be a match for her so you’re hoping that the film will just hurry to the end.

Annie isn’t a particularly likable villain. The film was certainly not trying to make her sympathetic anyway but because she dominates the screen time so much, that doesn’t help the movie either. The thriller aspect isn’t really able to get around that. So the film succeeds in making this a rather scary situation but not one that you’d find very enjoyable. For me the only silver lining here was the Sheriff because I liked that guy.

You just know that in horror/thrillers like this the sheriff is always doomed. No matter how earnest he is or how hard the guy tries, you figure he is still going to be taken out in short order as soon as he finally figures something out. Either way he’s still the best character but you wish he could have surpassed his limits and really made a difference. Done something to make his character arc hit a little harder at least.

As for the ending, it’s decent but not quite as bold as it could have been for a horror title like this. You see how the cycle could continue and all but it’s more left up to your imagination. You can also interpret it more like a gag. I do think that while Paul is keeping on a brave face, there’s nothing about the experience that you could call positive. At the end of the day this whole film was a traumatic experience for him and sometimes you just have to admit that things didn’t happen for the best.

Overall, Misery is a film that lives up to its name with how the whole thing is just a dreary experience for the guy. I don’t know what you could do to make the film a bit livelier within its premise but maybe making Annie a bit more reasonable would be a start. Have Paul be more of a jerk and gradually things start to get a little more drastic because of that. I don’t think the movie would ultimately have ever been great or anything but Annie being a little less crazy could have helped. Maybe have Paul’s legs/feet completely shattered from the accident so instead of her breaking it, it’s yet another thing that he has to worry about during this tense situation. Then with her trying to get him to write, it would be a little more on the unnerving side because he has nowhere to go and she is crazy, but perhaps not violently so.

Overall 3/10

Shanks Review

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Oof, it’s time to check out a film that was really not very good at all. That’s an understatement as this film is quite terrible and has to be one of the weakest films overall. There are no real good things to say about it by the end and it really drags on. I haven’t seen a film with pacing this bad since 2001: A Space Odyssey. So strap in folks because we’re in for a wild ride!

So the movie starts out by introducing us to Malcolm who can’t speak. He performs puppet shows during the day to earn money but unfortunately his family is rather corrupt. His sister an brother in law are both abusive and the guy gets drunk. They take it all out on Malcolm who basically has to take care of the house, earn the money, and do his best not to go crazy. Those two don’t contribute at all but take a lot of his money every time it’s pay day. So his life is just rough and the only person who is nice to him is a girl named Celia who looks forward to his puppet show for her birthday.

Well, one day Malcolm runs into an old man named Mr. Walker who runs crazy reanimation experiments. He lets Malcolm work on them too and the guy is thrilled. Basically you can stab anyone with these needles and then you can control them with a video game controller. Not a bad invention eh? It’s certainly got its uses and then Mr. Walker dies. Malcolm decides to take over the experiments and Malcolm’s family is bumped off so Malcolm reanimates their bodies. He now has the silent family that he always wanted and parades them across the town. It’s all going good for him until a gang of evil bikers show up and decide to terrorize the place. Can he defend Celia or is it all over?

This is one of those movies that is trying to be as dark as possible. It’s also just really mean spirited as the characters make things as hard on Malcolm as possible. Seriously the guy can’t even talk so that he could speak back to the other characters and they break his stuff for no good reason. Malcolm gets beat up and then of course you have the bikers who break into his place and beat him up some more.

One of the villains also has to be a creep who goes after the kid and things don’t go well for her. That was when I knew that this film wasn’t going to go past a 0. When you make a film go that bad there is just no returning from that. The villains get away with way too much here and they’re annoying every second that they’re on screen. They’re written to be as evil as possible with no actual character development or personality beyond that. They’re just figures of evil meant to push the story along.

This movie is also really determined to get you to admire how the actors are able to act really dead and move around like zombies. These scenes are incredibly long and just keep on going without any kind of break. You can spend 5 minutes just watching one of these reanimated guys walking around. Let me tell you, 5 minutes may not sound like a whole lot but when nothing else is happening it certainly feels like a lot of time. Then you have this keep on happening throughout the movie.

Much of the movie has no plot and is just about Malcolm walking around with his dead family as he fools people into thinking that they are alive. It would never work in any real world but this place is so odd that nobody questions it. Nobody even thinks to ask why they are so silent and nobody notices how they look super dead too. It may be trying to be very surreal but it just ends up being boring.

Malcolm also come across as being rather villainous at times like when he plays around with the knife and tries to scare Celia a bit. This guy doesn’t think things through and while he may just be a fan of dark humor, it’s not something that Celia needs to see when she’s just trying to have a good birthday party. The film is unrelenting with this though and the undead battles are also not very good. Everything is super slow and dreary instead of being fun and exciting.

The end of the film even has a big twist about the whole thing but instead of being a twist that makes you gasp at how inspired and out there it was, you’ll just be shaking your head. Yet another thing for you to see how the film is just not trying to have any fun. I don’t think any ending could have saved this film mind you, but this has to be one of the weaker ways to play things out. It actually just makes Malcolm look way worse since we now know a little bit more about how he thinks.

There is no reason to see the film. There is no fun lesson to be learned, no fun fight scene to go back to, no witty dialogue, etc. Every character is just really off here and you have to suspend your disbelief a lot. The movie isn’t funny and the effects are no good. When you boil the film down to the core themes, there just isn’t anything here of substance. I wouldn’t know where to begin on trying to salvage the film since I would say it was already bad from the very premise. Just change everything from the ground up and see how that goes.

Overall, Shanks is a film that you want to avoid at all costs. There are no happy scenes here as any brief moment where things are not going bad will change in an instant. Nobody is safe here and the film’s pacing slows down to a glacial speed as nothing happens for long portions of the movie. You could easily take out 30 minutes from this film and it would flow better while you do not lose any of the plot. Now that is absolutely a bad sign for the movie. It’s been a while since I saw a film that would be a total 0 but this has to take the cake. Stay far away! It’s quite telling that googling “Shanks movie” brings up a different film that has a character named Shanks in it as opposed to bringing up the movie that is literally called “Shanks”. That has to be a sign of how people have tried to forget this one.

Overall 0/10

Violent Saturday Review

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Violent Saturday is one of those films with a rather large cast as the various plots all converge by the end for the climax. How well the climax works will likely depend on how much you like all of the characters and plots. I would say that the movie is fairly solid and the plots work well for the most part with one exception. You should have a good time with this one, it can be a bit of a slow boil for a while but the ending definitely handles things nicely.

So lets go through each of the plots here real quick. The main story tying them altogether is we have 3 crooks who have decided to hold up a bank. They’ve done their research and aim to strike at the perfect time where there aren’t too many people who can stop them. Most of the film is based around their preparation so it takes a while for them to actually do the job. That’s where we get the various sub plots to come in as the characters from all of those plots end up being at the bank.

First up is Harry who is the most annoying character. He’s a perv who always runs outside the window of Linda so that he can catch her after she has come home for the night. Unfortunately she doesn’t realize that her apartment is quite high up and so with the window open anyone can see her. Harry doesn’t have the courage to talk to her in person though and so his life keeps on falling through the gutter. Perhaps this experience will teach him some courage but I can tell you that he is easily the worst character in the film.

Then you have Boyd who gets drunk rather easily. He’s not too happy with his home life at the moment and there is a lot of tension with his wife. He is more direct than Harry though and actually does make a pass on Linda. Ultimately she doesn’t take advantage of him in this weakened state and takes him home but not before scolding the wife. The scene was rather intense as Linda dares the lady to try and fight her. We definitely know who would have won that fight.

Meanwhile Linda is a solid character. She’s certainly quite popular in this town but always handles herself with elegance. She is perhaps a little too forgiving as she could have been a lot harder on Harry but it’s a little difficult to call that a character flaw. Linda is easily one of the nicest characters here and doesn’t make any big mistakes so I can certainly appreciate that. Then you have Elsie who is a thief. It’s quite fortunate for her that Harry is the one who located her since the blackmail canceled each other out there.

Elsie comes across as a little petty. Circumstances may be tough but it’s no excuse for being a thief and she gets quite outraged at anyone calling her out. This plot felt like it had the least amount of relevance to the story but at least it’s one more dynamic to follow. We also have an Amish family that is living in a plot of land nearby and that becomes relevant later on. They follow a very peaceful way of life and so they refuse to use violence even when the need arises.

I always think this can be extreme. If that’s the way you live your life then that’s that of course but to protect your family you feel like it is the time to cross a line. Fortunately the main member made the right call when it counted. Finally we also have Shelley who I would say is the main character here. It’s an ensemble film but at least if I had to pick a lead out of them it would be this guy. He did not serve in WWII so his son isn’t taking that too well when the other kids make fun of him.

Shelley knows that it couldn’t be helped but it’s difficult to convince his son of that. When this whole bank heist occurs, it’s his chance to finally do something about this. He can be a hero but if he makes the wrong call then he may just end up being dead. So he definitely has to watch out but in the end he does a good job on all counts. Considering that the odds were really against him, Shelley had to use a lot of strategy and tactics in order to turn the tides.

I would say Violent Saturday succeeds because the characters are well developed so it adds a little more tension to the climax. Not all of the characters were good to be sure but the overall picture was on point. The writing was good as well and I enjoyed the climax. It’s definitely tough having to go up against multiple opponents when your own allies aren’t really doing anything to help you out at least for most of it. A bank robbery like this is also a lot more intense back in the day because without cameras or anything, you have to assume that the robbers will never be caught if they escape. It would just be difficult to ever catch up to them and so it became even more imperative that they be stopped here.

Overall, The character arc for Shelley was really good and I’m glad that he got to really prove himself here. The movie keeps a good pace throughout and the fight at the end is fairly long so we get to see a lot of tricks from both sides. I can’t think of many films where the climax takes place in a barn either so that was a very original location to use. If the others had been harder on Shelley for murdering the villains as he fought them then that might have hurt the film a bit but fortunately while they didn’t agree, they weren’t actively getting in Shelley’s way. Now that would have been annoying. This film ages well so I’d recommend checking it out, maybe watch it on a Saturday!

Overall 7/10

My Dream is Yours Review

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Doris Day returns but this movie is considerably weaker than the other two. The romance is really bad here and while the movie has some decent moments as you’d expect from any comedy, it doesn’t land nearly as well as the other two. You’ll walk away from this film feeling like it seriously did not reach any of the potential that it could have had.

The movie starts with Doug being betrayed by Gary. See, Doug was that music star’s manager and got Gary to be one of the biggest hits in the country. The problem is that Gary now believes that he doesn’t need Doug anymore and drops him like a hat. Doug swears revenge but ultimately loses his job and has to start from scratch. That’s when he runs into a girl named Martha who has a solid singing voice. Doug is confident that he can use her to get his revenge but the problem is that Martha falls for Gary. How can Doug still turn this into a win?

I have quite a few issues with this film but the first is the whole romance with Gary. While Doug could act coy about how the entire schism with Gary started, Martha still knows enough to tell that he’s not a good guy. He acts hostile to Doug the entire time and always acts like Martha is the only person in the room. Gary is incredibly arrogant and full of himself. I just don’t get how she fell for him from the start.

The romance gets worse and worse as Gary’s bad attitude is exposed and he’s blacklisted from the entire industry. Almost literally nobody likes him and people don’t want to hire him for anything anymore. He becomes an alcoholic and just vanishes. Well, even then Martha is still writing him letters and going after the guy. Now here’s the thing, there’s nothing wrong with her not falling for Doug. He’s a great guy who helps her out a lot. He got her rich and really changed her life for the better but gratitude shouldn’t mean that you have to fall in love with that guy.

I’d totally be cool with her saying no to his confession and staying as friends. It’s rough for Doug but that’s just how it goes and it’s not like he did all of this with that in mind. Initially it was to get back at Gary and then after that he just genuinely wanted to help her out. Doug took his chance and asked her out and it didn’t work. It’s actually a bold move by the film and I’m cool with it but then we have Martha still going after Gary and it’s rather annoying.

Doug still wants to help Martha so in the end he gets Gary back on his feet and sets them up together. Very selfless behavior but the whole time Gary is acting like a jerk to both of them and straight up tells Martha to retire since he’ll be the breadwinner of the family. Only at this exaggerated moment does Martha finally realize that he’s no good…and then she grabs the rebound and slam dunks the ball back into the Doug basket. They get together and it’s probably one of the most blatant rebounds that I’ve seen in a long while.

Martha made it clear that Gary was the guy for her and she couldn’t return Doug’s feelings but now she is ready to be with him because Gary is a jerk? That’s just unacceptable and it’s the kind of romance that doesn’t feel real. Of course Doug is thrilled since it all feels nice to him but are the feelings really real? It’s something that he’ll have to think about in the back of his mind and that’s where things get a little spooky for him. It’s not a romance that I can get behind though and it does really sour the film.

If you cut out all of the scenes of her chasing after Gary then things would be better. Honestly I would remove that subplot completely because I still don’t see how she could fall for him given the circumstances. The guy never seemed like a good person so it’s not like the ending was particularly shocking. I also thought the film could have really had an interesting angle with Doug just realizing that they would always just be friends instead. The movie had a good foundation but blew it.

I also thought that while the film showed how hard it can be to break into the industry, that part could be a bit long. We spend ages with Doug trying to get Martha gigs at various places. These moments led to a lot of fun gags as well but the longer this went on, the more it felt even more personal when she went with Gary. The best gag in the movie has to be when Doug is trying to downplay Gary the whole time but it turns out that he was talking to the janitor and not the director. That was a great twist and I really liked the writing there because there was a lot of good wordplay thrown in for the insults. That was handled really well.

One of the guys that they have to try and impress is Felix because he basically owns the main music station and you need him on your side. Unfortunately he also happens to be one of the most annoying characters in the whole film. He is even more scatter brained than the characters that the actor usually plays and can’t focus on anything. He’s always just getting in the way and by the end he may as well just be another antagonist. He isn’t willing to give Martha a fair shot at all.

Martha also lags behind the previous heroines not only for the Gary stuff but because she doesn’t really seem prepared to go all out in order to complete her dreams. One scene that was iffy was when she was going to throw it all away if she couldn’t bring her son with her. She really would have had no time to raise him while auditioning and it’s not like she could drop him off at day care. Still, it was difficult to convince her and she was absolutely just going to give up. Then she also decides to perform at a very seedy bar even while overhearing a lot of the criminal behavior that the owner engages in. It’s clear that things won’t end well for her here but she goes through with it anyway before being saved by the main guy. Her decision making skills were very questionable throughout the movie.

Overall, In the end while the movie does get some laughs, it could also be a bit mean spirited at times. I felt like Gary got off way too easy and so in the end the movie isn’t nearly as good as it could and should have been. I wasn’t really impressed here and maybe it doesn’t help that I saw this one right after two other comedy films that were way better. Either way you will want to take a pass on this one. It’s not really bad or anything so you could always check it out if you really want something light to watch but you could do way better within the genre.

Overall 5/10