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Cookie's Corner - Year 1

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Time to rip into y'all's trash.

 

Going by the calendar and won't review my own films to avoid bias.

 

Killer Plane

 

A Micheal Bay film that disappointingly doesn’t resemble a Micheal Bay film in any way. Where are the explosions? The hot chicks? The egregious product placement? What this is is another Mark Wahlberg/Peter Berg joint without Peter Berg. The funny part is that the intentionally disposable film actually had the potential to make a subtle commentary on the incoming automation of public transport, but it’s clear the film isn’t interested in exploring that angle… or any angle whatsoever.

 

D

 

 

Lake of the Psychopaths

The premise of a pair of horror movie buffs staging a real mass murder for the sake of Youtube views would work well with a satirical/tongue-in-cheek edge but the film bizarrely plays all of it straight, and that immediately renders the premise very, very, very dumb. Jackson and Nick turn into Jason Voorhees-style killers with no lead in at all and most of the film is spent with them killing teenagers. There are some gory kills but the movie could have been way more creative in that department. As it is it grows old very fast.

 

C-/D+

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Captain Planet

 

Captain Planet, he's a zero... Nah, I kid. Chris Evans does fairly well translating his Captain America-earnestness into the titular hero of this film. I just wished the rest of the movie was as earnest as he was. I'm not saying that Captain Planet should be taken 100% seriously, or even 50%, but the mean-spirited snark comes off more as distracting than amusing. Also would have helped if the kids weren't even more carbon cut-outs than even in the original show. Sure, they were all stereotypes in the original, but at least you could tell them apart, here they're not even given individual names. The film's rather moderate budget shows on the effects as well, meaning we're left out on any real visual spectacle. For a family outing you can do far worse (as long as you can get past the unnecessary snark), but it's nothing you should rush out to see.

 

C

 

 

SOMA

 

Me: Why do people kill themselves right after copying their consciousness to robots? If their consciousness remain in their original body enough so that they can willingly commit suicide, then they don't gain anything by copying their consciousness, so why do it?

Catherine: I don't know.

Me: What was up with that black goo? We saw it once and then it just disappears from the movie. What does WAU even stand for?

Catherine: I don't know.

Me: You're Emily Blunt, why are you playing a person from Taiwan?

Catherine: I don't know.

Me: Where did the giant robot in the first act come from? What use did the scientists have for giant robots?

Catherine: I don't know.

Me: What on earth is up with that ending?

Catherine: I don't know.

Me: I feel like this movie raises more questions than it answers.

Catherine: Well you see, *giant exposition dump*

 

I honestly don't know where to rank this. On the one hand it's a visually stunning film and definitely creates a very unique albeit confusing experience. But on the other hand, the plot and structure is a mess. The film seems to have two speeds: constantly moving or stopped dead in its tracks for long stretches of time in service of another exposition dump. For every small moment that tells the story effectively through visuals (the scene with Catherine's real corpse comes to mind), a bigger moment is ruined by either too much exposition or no lead in at all. I've never played the game its based on, but games can get away with confusing narratives since that's not what you came for anyway, unless the game happens to be very story-heavy in which case I don't think the film manages to translate it very well. Still, just for the fact that the movie succeeds in creating an experience unlike many other movies it deserves at least some credit. Just don't think about it too hard.

 

C+

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The Artificial Age

 

It's a low-rent Terminator Salvation without the time-travel aspect which sounds damning but I'll admit I had a little bit of fun with it. Would have worked better though if the characters had more dimensions and the ending didn't only exist to set up a sequel, which since this is being dumped in late January suggests a sequel being highly unlikely.

 

C+

 

 

Battle: Mars

 

A low-rent John Carter and this time I mean it in the most damning sense. No dimensions to the characters, cheap and ugly animation, it's this year's Delgo.

 

D-

 

 

The Devil's Hitman

 

"Kyle Crystal (Nicolas Cage)..."

 

Nope. I refuse to believe Nic Cage is playing a guy with a name that stupid. That is Jupiter Jones-level of dumb naming conventions.

 

"Meanwhile, an ambitious and unruly archdemon known as Kalixar (Ray Liotta) and his sinister, seductive daughter Kimbax (Kristanna Loken)..."

 

Do you want me to walk out within the first five minutes, movie? Trust me, I'll gladly do that.

 

"Just when all seems lost, however, Kimbax attacks her father, leaving him weak enough that Kyle proceeds to kill him. Kimbax says her plan all along was to overthrow her father and take over Hell and Earth for herself."

 

Yeah, that sounds like a well-thought out plan. Kill your father before he defeats the one guy who can stop you. I'm sure that won't backfire at all.

 

"[Nic Cage and Nicola Peltz] succeed in killing Kimbax together..."

 

Oh hey look, it backfired.

 

"However, the devil reveals that he lied to Kyle and used him; he does not actually have the power to return him to life permanently, and Kyle must return to Hell."

 

The devil is a liar? Who knew?

 

But really, it's an Uwe Boll joint. Did you expect anything less (or in this case, more)?

 

F

 

 

White Jerseys

 

Would've earned plenty of points if the two guys turned out to be gay and ended up together in the end, but the movie is way too occupied with playing it safe to ever pull something ballsy like that. If you're looking for something completely milquetoast you're in the right place.

 

C-

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Poison and Wine

 

So in a way this is basically Fifty Shades of Grey with two collage-age men instead of a rich boy and a poor girl. Walking into this, I thought it'd be a similar experience, perhaps even a bit funnier given how melodramatic I heard it was. At the same time, I thought to myself that maybe this will explore a gay relationship we haven't seen on screen before, and thus become much better than what the early word had declared it was.

 

*145 minutes later*

 

200.gif

 

Lots to unpack here. For starters: this shouldn't be 145 minutes long. In fact it would barely hold up as a 90-minute feature. With a story so thin stretched out to such an absurd length it only results in a ton of filler in between the gratuitous sex scenes, which after the first thirty minutes only occur sporadically anyway so there's not much for the target audience - which I assume are horny housewives and gay men - to latch on to. The only subplot that seems to have any semblance of importance (the student election) comes in at very brief windows and exist to set up a twist that's completely nonsensical given the circumstances.

 

The two leads do their parts well, and certainly look the part, but at times their acting nosedive into the kind of melodrama I was expecting from the outset and it just gets silly rather than engrossing. There's certainly a lot you can read into regarding the power dynamic in their relationship. It's kinda hard for me to label it: is it abusive? Pseudo-romantic? Oppressive? One element the film does succeed quite well in is handing the viewer enough clues about each character's history just from the dialogue exchanges between the two without having to stop the movie to explain this to the audience.

 

That said, the length really is a major issue, and by the end I was just numb, even if the penultimate scene is admittedly quite disturbing and will probably make any viewer, gay or straight, feel uncomfortable walking out of.  There are few minor plot quibbles too, not helped by the constant time skipping, but they could've been overlooked if the film didn't move at such a glacial pace and then went haywire in the final ten minutes.

 

I'll say this, it's not as bad as I thought it would be, mainly because there's an interesting dynamic to unpack within the central relationship, but the length and pacing kills any sort of interest I had in going back and analyzing it. If viewers find themselves titillated by the graphic sex in between all the filler, knock yourselves out. As for me, I may need a shower.

 

C-

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Looking back I am not surprised at the reviews for Poison and Wine. It is my first fan fiction adopted to CAYOM. The story is loved on the fan fiction site, but I think the edit on here wasn't the best. I don't think it translated to CAYOM as smoothly as I thought. I still will release the sequels,  since this is a passion project of mine. (The films will be divided into two films since that story is over 228,000+ long).

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The SCP Foundation

 

Being a horror anthology I feel like I have to review each segment individually and give a conclusion at the very end, since like Poison and Wine I feel there's a lot to unpack here. I am very familiar with the source material, so I will review it from that perspective. Someone who's unfamiliar may not have the same experience.

 

Prologue

 

The opening narration does very well in setting up both the impetus and the purpose of the foundation, both in how it is written and the visuals it present. Although I will say that you can transplant the same narration into a Men In Black-style buddy comedy without much changing, and by the end I actually had the Men In Black theme in my head.

 

The Sculpture

 

Not a good start. Granted, it's only a four-minute short, but I feel like that's exactly the problem. The short wastes a very promising actor by putting him in a chamber with the admittedly terrifying creature and all that comes out of it is that the monster kills him. This should just be the setup for the short, not the entirety of it. We should have transitioned into the creature escaping and the rest of the much longer short being the creature pursuing its victims (with Kaluuya still alive and as our protagonist). As it is it stops before it can even get going.

 

Betamax Reagan

 

Undeniably much better than the first short, but it feels like it lacks an ending. You think it's building up to a twist or something truly insane, but other than driving the one character mad it doesn't go anywhere.

 

The Old Man

 

This faces the same issue as The Sculpture, it ends before it can really get going. In fact, this could have been made an entire movie out of given how visual it is. Just the scene in the dark corridor alone is darkly tense and the monster's design is very well done and scary-looking. That said, there's a major hole where the kid apparently survives the encounter with the monster but is never seen again for the rest of the short.

 

Cash or Ash

 

This is a really short one, probably a minute or two tops. The dark humor makes it more humorous than scary, but audiences will be left wondering "that's it?"

 

Mother Always Knows

 

This is a very well done short, cleverly developing its central character and the monster solely through dialogue, leading up to a pretty freaky

conclusion (although we never find out what the purpose of the pentagram is). Aaron-Taylor Johnson is a real standout here.

 

The Hanged King's Tragedy

 

A shakespearean-style tragedy with a twist ending. Another well made short as you feel very invested in the gruesome proceedings before the rug is pulled under you. This and Mother Always Knows is what the earlier shorts should have been, telling a complete story with characters and a conflict you can invest in.

 

Conclusion

 

The movie saves itself from a lesser grade thanks to the strength of its final two shorts, but while I was critical of the earlier shorts they are all still well-directed and will probably provide enough of a thrill for non-demanding audiences. If you can make it through the earlier shorts you will find the film ending on a high note, which is more than I can say for most of Year 1's other early offerings.

 

B-

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Best Friends Forever

 

Starts off promisingly but the film unfortunately derails at the halfway point. A major flaw that could have been easily fixed is that the film never explains how Jill got away with her murders, including that of her father, and that gives everybody around her and Kylie the idiot ball. The two actresses do give very invested performances which help save some it, but by the end it's just murder and splatter without much substance. The movie even manages to flub its own anti-bullying message which doesn't help things.

 

C+

 

 

Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills

 

Power Rangers parody with a slight sprinkle of Voltron that actually started off quite humorously, but by the middle had unfortunately worn out it's welcome...

 

...That is, until past the halfway point where the movie becomes so nuts that it's back to being funny again, especially with the scene of the four teens telling their so-called "darkest secrets" to one another, with a supposed tragic backstory that's sure to leave audiences in stitches. The ending is another highlight, defying audience expectations and letting the villain win in a pretty comedic fashion. The very medium-sized budget actually works in the film's favor, as the costumes and effects wouldn't have worked as well if they were of higher quality.

 

So yeah, I actually had quite a bit of fun with this.

 

B

 

 

BraveStarr

 

Kinda like Captain Planet, I would've honestly liked it more if it was actually less self-aware, for there is a certain goofy charm to the whole thing and the self-deprecating humor only makes the actually serious scenes all the more jarring. That said, the designs are creative, the action is fun, the characters while two-dimensional at best are all well-cast and the future-western setting gives the movie a unique look. For a Saturday matinée, you'll have a decent time.

 

B-

 

 

Runaway, A Road Adventure

 

Both Robert DeNiro and Melissa McCarthy are completely wasted in this and the two leads don't manage to pick up the slacks. The plot actually gets really confusing in the second half and by the end I completely forgot why anyone was doing anything. The only element I can say I liked were the three drag queens, the movie introduces them without being judgmental or making them the butt of some joke, which I thought was a nice touch. Unfortunately, not even Paul Feig can save the rest of this dreck from being anything but an unfunny snoozer.

 

D

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2 hours ago, cookie said:

Runaway, A Road Adventure

 

Both Robert DeNiro and Melissa McCarthy are completely wasted in this and the two leads don't manage to pick up the slacks. The plot actually gets really confusing in the second half and by the end I completely forgot why anyone was doing anything. The only element I can say I liked were the three drag queens, the movie introduces them without being judgmental or making them the butt of some joke, which I thought was a nice touch. Unfortunately, not even Paul Feig can save the rest of this dreck from being anything but an unfunny snoozer.

 

D

Looking back, I think the critics for Runaway are absolutely justified and that I won't be able to do a second movie. I failed to transcribe the perfect confuse feeling of the game in the movie, it's just confuse and not funny.

I will probably use the story of Runaway 2 & 3 -  that I really like - to create a new franchise...

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6 minutes ago, Bastien said:

Looking back, I think the critics for Runaway are absolutely justified and that I won't be able to do a second movie. I failed to transcribe the perfect confuse feeling of the game in the movie, it's jot confuse and not funny.

I will probably use the story of Runaway 2 & 3 -  that I really like - to create a new franchise...

I didn't even realize it was based on a game! Never heard of it. 

Right now the movie is tracking to surpass its production budget domestically, so as long as it doesn't COMPLETELY bomb overseas you could probably get away with doing a sequel.

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I probably would agree that Mother Always Knows is the best segment in SCP, though my personal favorite from the lineup is Betamax Reagan just because I liked both the concept and the idea behind the political squabblings between the Foundation and the US government.

 

One thing's for sure, though, the sequel's definitely gonna up the ante, and probably a bigger overarching story between segments.

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5 minutes ago, Xillix said:

I didn't even realize it was based on a game! Never heard of it. 

Right now the movie is tracking to surpass its production budget domestically, so as long as it doesn't COMPLETELY bomb overseas you could probably get away with doing a sequel.

The second movie would necessit a way bigger budget (it's more like an Adventure game).

 

Spoiler

Yup Runaway is a little-known video-game franchise. They are point and click game (my favorite vg-genre) and I grew up with them.. The first one as clearly the weakest story of the three... And the third one is quite amazing and remarkable... So I don't know..

 

640full-runaway:-a-road-adventure-cover.

 

Betamax Reagan is also my favorite part of SCP because I just love so much conspiracy-movies and this kind of thing.

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37 minutes ago, Alpha said:

I probably would agree that Mother Always Knows is the best segment in SCP, though my personal favorite from the lineup is Betamax Reagan just because I liked both the concept and the idea behind the political squabblings between the Foundation and the US government.

 

One thing's for sure, though, the sequel's definitely gonna up the ante, and probably a bigger overarching story between segments.

Plague Doctor or bust.

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3 hours ago, Alpha said:

I probably would agree that Mother Always Knows is the best segment in SCP, though my personal favorite from the lineup is Betamax Reagan just because I liked both the concept and the idea behind the political squabblings between the Foundation and the US government.

 

One thing's for sure, though, the sequel's definitely gonna up the ante, and probably a bigger overarching story between segments.

Betamax Reagan was probably the best imo. Mother Always Knows was pretty good too.

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Rendezvous With Rama

 

This is Luc Besson trying to be Stanley Kubrick or failing that Christopher Nolan, but he just can't pull it off. A decent cast is wasted with no character development or barely even a story. The movie even ends without a real third act and for being based on such a celebrated source material there are some baffling logical leaps throughout ("this alien ship may be hostile, so lets nuke it while our people are still on board!"). If all you want to see are pretty space visuals you'll get that, but at 141 minutes it's a slog.

 

C-

 

 

Séance

 

The film holds your interest in the first two acts with a few surprising turns leaving you interested in how the whole thing wraps up, and that's where the movie unfortunately fumbles a bit. First the film pulls a twist in that the ghosts Myra saw never existed and were just a product of her declining mental state. A bit overdone of a twist in my opinion, but sure, I can roll with it. Then Amanda's ghost appears and kills her. So wait, the ghosts did exist? Or just some of them? The movie wants to have its cake and eat it too when it really should have been one or the other. Some movies can pull off both, but I don't feel this succeeded in that. Also there's an odd plot hole in that Myra's husband dies in a car crash and the movie goes on with this having no effect on Myra. There are some decent scares and the two leads do their parts well, so it's not a total loss.

 

B-

 

 

Jim's Adversity

 

The film plays out too much like a documentary which if you're not already a fan of Jim Eisenreich is gonna leave you with no real emotional impact. The movie even focuses on the wrong year, when it really should have dived into the off-years in between when Eisenreich struggled with his misdiagnosed condition. For baseball fans only.

 

C-

 

 

Jungles

 

Good for taking your class to for a lesson on man's impact on the environment, but anyone else should wait for this to come on the Discovery Channel.

 

C+

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The Adventures of Oscar Pill

 

Much like Poison and Wine I needed to make notes while watching the movie for there's so much I need to unpack here.

 

Look, I get annoyed sometimes when a movie is criticized for setting up a franchise. This is, for better or worse, what the cinematic landscape is right now and truth be told some stories can't be told the same way without being part of an already established continuity. Would Captain America: Civil War have the same impact if it was the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Hell no. Would Deathly Hallows work as the first Harry Potter movie? Definitely not. Now, this isn't an excuse for not telling a story with a beginning, middle and end within one movie. Some studios think they can get a pass for making movies that are just two hours of setup since they're going to pay it off later. The 2017 Mummy movie is an example of that. And so is The Adventures of Oscar Pill.

 

The film is a weird mix of Harry Potter and Doctor Strange, which works both in its favor and against it. The casting of a young black actor in the lead role is a refreshing change of pace and Attah does his part well (although he seems to like pouting a lot) but I feel Jamie Lee Curtis and Russell Crowe are just phoning it in. The concept of the film is actually pretty unique, although I don't think it's explained very well. After 135 minutes I still didn't have a firm grasp of the rules of this world.

 

Here's the big problem: It's really only half a movie. It takes way too long for Oscar Pill to even learn of his powers and by the time the movie starts setting up what you think is going to be its central conflict (Oscar Pill finding out the truth about his missing father) the movie is over. I would have given the movie some props for not forcing an antagonist if the movie didn't set up an antagonist (the dark prince) only to have him never show up. No really, the villain never shows up in this. I think audiences are going to walk out peeved off for sitting through a whole movie of setups with no payoff.

 

I compared it to Doctor Strange and that rings true visually. There's definitely some trippy images when Oscar enters the world inside a person's body and each world is modeled after the person Oscar entered which is a neat touch. For visuals alone some people may enjoy it, but you won't even get to those visuals until halfway through.

 

If this had told a complete story instead of cutting off early I would've have been much more positive towards it but as it is it doesn't really work, especially since it's doubtful that it's going to be successful enough to spawn a franchise in the first place going by other reviews and the film's current box office trajectory. Maybe if the film gets a sequel with a real payoff I can look back on this in hindsight, but I struggle to recommend it as it is right now.

 

C-

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I definitely think I didn't introduced well the world of Oscar Pill.. And that's a shame. I will try to do my best to fix all of the issues in the sequel... There are some things I'm just not guilty of (the search of the father is really gonna be in center of the five movies), but some.. I am. I should have explained a bit more how all of this works and also the visual impact of Hepatholia too I think.

 

(and thanks Cookie. this long review is really helping me to find the issues of my movie :D !)

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6 minutes ago, Bastien said:

I definitely think I didn't introduced well the world of Oscar Pill.. And that's a shame. I will try to do my best to fix all of the issues in the sequel... There are some things I'm just not guilty of (the search of the father is really gonna be in center of the five movies), but some.. I am. I should have explained a bit more how all of this works and also the visual impact of Hepatholia too I think.

 

(and thanks Cookie. this long review is really helping me to find the issues of my movie :D !)

I think if you told a complete story and introduced the plot point of his missing father as a sequel tease at the very end it wouldn't be an issue, but in the movie as is it comes in just as you think the film's about to get going and you think the rest of the film is going to be about that, but that's where the movie cuts off. I found out it's adapted from a book series so if the books play out like that I'm going to blame them, and maybe you should have adapted multiple books at a time if that is the case.

 

Hopefully you do much better with the sequel.

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Seeing Her

 

I just have to get this out of the way: Oliver's parents are real assholes. Who the hell says "you'll find some other girl" right after said girl's funeral?! You can do that when your kid goes through a breakup, not when the love of his life dies in a brutal car accident. And it doesn't stop there. The mother even rolls her fucking eyes when Oliver says nobody can replace Gwen. Bitch, your kid is grieving, lay off with the attitude.

 

Time travel movies are hard to pull off. Even the best ones like Back to the Future can't avoid running into plot holes so the general rule is to let a lot of things slide when it comes to these movies, and hearing the glowing reviews for this I went in with that in mind.

 

But this is goddamn bonkers.

 

The movie sells itself as a romantic dramedy, but if you take away the tragic impetus it's really a Futurama episode. Oliver's descent into madness is handled reasonably well, but the three people handling the time travel quickly develop a serious case of the idiot ball. Sure, let this increasingly unstable person keep screwing around with the timeline, I'm sure that won't backfire in any way. The only person who develops any sense is Sarah and even then she goes all googily-eyes for Oliver even as he keeps messing things up.

 

And then the movie has the goddamn balls to tell me that there are multiple time travel institutions, and you can just go over there and do it again without them doing any background check on you, only trusting you by the word. Plus there are help centers for so-called "time travel addicts". So you're telling me this has happened many times before? You think that after finally warning Oliver not to screw around with the timeline anymore they would have stopped him from going to the other institution and keep doing the same thing since they must have been aware of the risk of having multiple institutions dedicated to time travel. And how the hell can an intern afford to pay the hefty amount they demand to let him mess with the timeline in the first place?

 

Entering the third act I just gave up and rolled with whatever the movie was throwing at me at that point. The ending is kinda fun, but again makes the movie play out like a screwball comedy rather than the tugging-at-your-heartstrings drama I thought it was going to be. And I could have forgiven all the baffling logical leaps, because as I said you have to accept a lot of things with a setup like this, if the movie's tone didn't spectacularly derail like that.

 

So yeah, this was a disappointment. Sorry @spaghetti!.

 

C+

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