Created: 27/12/2022 - Last updated: 30/09/2023
Notes to help me remember what the movies & TV shows I've watched were about. Absolutely full of spoilers. You can also see this list (without the summaries nor TV shows) in my Letterboxd account. Movies and shows marked with a * means this is a rewatch. Rewatches can't count towards favorite movie / show of the month.
Previous years watch diaries: 2022.
Favorite movie: They Cloned Tyrone Favorite tv show: The Boys Special mention: Andor
Kanan is struggling with his blindness, and worried that Ezra is turning to the dark side because of the Sith Holocron. After confiscating the Holocron, Kanan is summoned into the Atollon wilds by Bendu, an ancient Force wielder who is neither Jedi nor Sith, and who teaches him how to use the Force to make up for his lost sight. Maul takes the Ghost crew hostage in order to get the Sith and Jedi Holocrons, which are rumored to grant immeasurable knowledge to the person who would combine them. While Kanan rescues the crew, Ezra and Maul try to open both Holocrons; Maul is looking for Kenobi, and Ezra is looking for a way to defeat the Siths; the answer to both of their questions lies in Tatooine. After a tip from a new Fulcrum, Sabine recruits Wedge from the Imperial Academy. Hera's home is invated by the Empire, and when she fails to recue her family's kalikori (an important heirloom), she decides to blow up her house so it can't be used for nefarious reasons. Sabine tries to convince the Mandalorian Fenn Rau to join the rebellion one more time, and he finally agrees after the Empire tries to kill him. When going on a rescue mission to save Saw Gerrera on Geonosis, they discover a Geonosian survivor, along with proofs that the Empire exterminated his people - unfortunately, the proofs are destroyed when they flee the planet and they are unable to bring them in front of the Senate. Sabine finds the Darksaber on Dathomir, and Kanan convinces her to try to use it to rally Mandalore to the Rebel cause. While getting trained to fight with the lightsaber, she reveals that she left her family because she created some very harmful weapons while studying in the academy, and that those were used against Mandalorians, bringing shame on her. She goes to her family, who's scared of the Empire but has to defend themselves when Gar Saxon, the current ruler of Mandalore, tries to betray them. Sabine decides to stay with her family to help stabilize Mandalore and recruit them to join the Rebellion. The Ghost crew is sent to rescue Mon Mothma, a senator in danger because of the way she's been speaking against the Empire. They bring her to the new rebel base on Dantooine, from where she transmits a message to all Rebel cells, urging the formation of the Rebel Alliance - it works, and dozens of ships from around the galaxy drop out of hyperspace in response to the call. Ezra goes to Tatooine to save Kenobi from Maul, but instead Kenobi defeats Maul and, after the Jedi reveals that he's watching over the Chosen One, Maul's last words are "He will avenge us". Kallus is revealed to be working for the rebellion as Fulcrum, since his time with Zeb in season 2 changed him, but Grand Admiral Thrawn discovers it and imprisons him at a critical moment - just when he's about to warn the rebels that the Empire known about their plan to attack the new TIE factory on Lothal. Thrawn attacks the rebel base in Atollon, and Commander Sato sacrifices himself to allow Ezra to escape and call for help from the rest of the Rebel fleet. When it turns out that the Rebel fleet doesn't want to take the risk, Ezra turns to Sabine and Fenn Rau to help the Rebels escape from Lothal. Kanan tries to ask Bendu for help, but only manages to anger him, which results in Bendu attacking everybody indiscriminately and forcing the Empire - and the Rebels! - off the planet. Kallus manages to use an escape pod to join the Ghost crew, and all Rebels ships escape to Yavin IV. This season was very good and I especially loved all the tie-ins with the upcoming A New Hope movie: the pilot Wedge, Mon Mothma, Yavin IV, and the creation of the Rebel Alliance! I'm glad Kallus turned to the Rebellion - he was an awful character in the first seasons, but somehow they managed to make his change believable and to make him even, dare I say... likeable?! I really liked that Kanan stayed blind (even though it's a magic blindness since he can "see" with the Force, but better than nothing I guess), but the one thing I will never forgive is that they cut Ezra's hair??? What was that about, way to ruin a character design! Anyway lots of things happening in this season, mostly about growing the Rebel Alliance - be it with new recruits or supplies and weapons; as well as the side plot with the Mandalorians. Good stuff, 4/5.
Fire elements Bernie and Cinder Lumen immigrate to Element City where they face xenophobia from the long established Water, Air and Earth communities, but also from the city design itself which sprays water on them constantly. They open a convenience store called the Fireplace, which their kid Ember grows prepared to inherit. Ember has trouble controlling her temper, and one day she's so overwhelmed that her firey explosion makes some pipes burt, which floods the shop and brings in city inspector Wade Ripple - a Water element - who has to report the shop for safety violations. Ember tries and fails to stop Wade, but when she pleads her case to him, he agrees to take her to see his supervisor, Air element Gale Cumulus. Cumulus states that the area now known as the Fire district shouldn't have water in its pipes, so she charges Ember and Wade to investigate where the water comes from, and promises that the Fireplace won't be closed for the violation if they manage. The duo finds the lead, Ember seals it with tampered glass she makes from sandbags, and they start to spend more time together. Upon visiting Wade's family, Ember also repairs a broken pitcher and Wade's mother is so impressed with her skills that she immediately recommends her for a glassmaking internship. Ember is upset at the idea, and after a conversation with Wade she realizes it's because she never wanted to take over her parents' shop, but felt like she never had a choice as she wants to repay the sacrifices they made for her. Just then, Bernie announces that he's ready to retire and to hand the Fireplace to Ember. Ember once explained how she had wanted to see the famous Vivisteria flower in the Garden Central Station as a kid but was denied because of aforementioned xenophobia; so Wade takes her to the now flooded and abandonned gardens, using an air bubble to carry her around. Afterwards, they realize that they are able to touch without hurting each other, and they start to dance romantically, but Ember gets overwhelmed by her parent's prejudice against Water elements and her duty to the Fireplace, so she runs away. Bernie is throwing a party to celebrate Ember taking over the shop, but Wade interrupts to voice his feelings, but accidentally reveals that she's the cause of the broken pipe that flooded the shop. Ember rejects him but her mother, who can discern true love, knows the truth. A disappointed Bernie denies the shop from Ember, but soon the glass seal breaks again and floods the Fire district. While trying to save the ancestral "Blue Flame" from the shop, Ember and Wade become trapped in the Fireplace's oven, causing Wade to evaporate and seemingly die. When Ember is freed, she confeses to her parents that she doesn't want to take over the shop and that she's in love with Wade. When she hears water dripping behind her, she realizes that Wade isn't dead, but has simply seeped into the ceiling, so she makes him cry until he's back, and they share a kiss. Ember's parents tell her that the Fireplace was never the dream, Ember was the dream, so they'll be happy if she's happy. She leaves for her glassmaking internship and to travel the world with Wade a few month later, with her parents blessing. So there are parts of this movie I really loved, like the very obvious, zero subtext immigrant story, especially as it was written by a Korean-American man who relied heavily on his own experience to write the story. I also liked the worldbuilding with the elements, the city design, the foods, the cultural clashes, etc. However there was also some pretty weird things, like the awkward copaganda plotline of "the city inspector really really doesn't want to report this person and he's crying over it but he's still gonna snitch and have her shop closed"... what? And maybe the immigrant story was maybe sometimes too obvious, while the xenophobia was reduced to "but elements literally hurt each other if they get close!". Still, I had a good time, 4/5.
Fontaine is a drug dealer in a suburban neighborhood called the Glen. His mother stays in her room all day and rarely speaks to Fontaine, and he still mourns the death of his younger brother, killed by a cop. One day, Fontaine goes to confront Slick Charles, a pimp who owes him money, but he gets fatally shot by an opposing drug dealer named Isaac as he leaves. The next morning, Slick is shocked when Fontaine shows up for the money once again, somehow alive and without any recollections of the previous night's events. The sex worker Yo-Yo, also present the previous night, confirms Slick's story, which confuses Fontaine. Investigating in their area, they discover a hidden elevator in an empty house, which leads to an underground lab. Inside, a white scientist with an afro tells them this is a huge operation, but Slick accidentally shoots him after snorting a mysterious white powder that makes him laugh uncontrollably. Before leaving, the group finds Fontaine's corpse on a table. The next day, the elevator to the lab has disappeared. The group goes to a fried chicken restaurant where everybody's laughing, which makes Slick realize they put the mysterious powder in the chicken. Yo-yo seduces the restaurant's manager, who looks just like the white scientist, and she discovers that the powder is put everywhere while the entirety of the Glen is being monitored. They manage to enter the labs again through another elevator found in a church, and discover that Black people are being subject to various mind control experiments, as well as a room full of clones of many people from the Glen. Most if not all the scientists they meet are white. As they escape through a strip club, the DJ mind controls all the attendees through a song, and they attack the trio, until they're stopped by a white man named Nixon and a Fontained clone named Chester. Nixon tells them to stop their investigation, or he will mind control them into killing themselves. Fontaine wants to give up the fight, but his anger is renewed when he discovers that his mother, whom he had never actually seen, was just a voice on a tape recorder. Yo-Yo decides to break the story, but is kidnapped by Nixon. Fontaine comes up with a plan with Slick and Isaac to rescue Yo-Yo, faking his death to sneak into the lab undetected. Fontaine lets Slick and Isaac in to storm the lab with numerous armed residents of the Glen. They free the Black people being experimented on, including the clones, while Yo-Yo frees herself. Fontaine is taken to an older version of himself, revealed to be the original one. He explains that he is helping scientists to create "peace" in the US by whitewashing Black people into white people, through mind control and generational breeding, claiming that assimilation is better than annihilation. Fontaine uses the mind control trigger word on Chester and has him shoot the original Fontaine. Meanwhile, Yo-Yo stalls Nixon from killing her before Slick shoots him in the head. Naked clones spill out in the streets, exposing the secret operation. After Yo-Yo announces her retirement from her job, the trio decides to head to Memphis, to further expose and stop the operations going in various cities. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, a man named Tyrone is identical to Fontaine and living the same lifestyle as him. While with his friends, he watches as one of Fontaine's clones appears on TV, all realizing that Tyrone is a clone and/or has been cloned. This was good! Somehow I was expecting more, as I've seen some people compare this to Get Out, and I can see why they would say that because of the themes, but it wasn't the same level. Still, good! 4.5/5.
In a post-ecocide world, Max Rockatansky is haunted by the memories of those he failed to protect. He's captured and taken to warlord Immortan Joe's Citadel, where he's used as a "blood bag" for War Boy Nux. Meanwhile, Imperator Furiosa, one of Joe's lieutenants, is sent in the armoured "War Rig" to get petrol and ammunition but she deviates from her road. Joe realizes that his five wives are missing and immediately assumes that they were taken by Furiosa, so he sends his army after her - also calling on his allies from Gas Town and Bullet Farm. War Boy Nux joins the fight with Max strapped to his car, and is the only one to survive the pursuit when Furiosa goes into a sand storm. Once the storm dies down, Max begrudgingly joins up with Furiosa and the wives. The heavily pregnant & favorite wife Angharad falls off the rig while helping Max and is ran over by Joe, who stops to mourn her. Nux is sent by Joe to kill Furiosa but he fails in front of his idol and his spirits are crushed, until one of the wives, Capable, finds him and reassures him, effectively turning him into an ally. They are heading to the Green Place, where Furiosa grew up, but if she finds a few of the Many Mothers (or Vuvalini) who used to inhabit it, she realizes that the Green Place is now an uninhabitable swamp. The group minus Max decides to try and ride accross an immense salt flat, hoping to find a new home, but Max convinces them to try and take back the Citadel instead. There are more fights on the way, and five out of the seven Vuvalini die. Furiosa kills Immortan Joe and Nux sacrifies himself to block the army so that the crew can reach the Citadel. When they arrive, the people rejoice upon learning of Joe's death and tear his corpse to pieces. As Max's companions are lifted in triumph to the fortress, Max exchanges a glance with Furiosa and disappears into the crowd. A classic, never gets old, beautiful and powerful, 10/10 will watch again! No but seriously... I love this movie. I love Furiosa. I love Max. I love Nux. I love the guitar guy. I love the cars and the desert. I love the worldbuilding. And I love that Max says maybe 10 words in total during the whole movie. 5/5.
The daughter of King Triton, teenage mermaid Ariel, is obsessed with humans, but forbidden to visit them because her mother died at their hands. When the rescues a human prince from a ship wreck and falls in love with him, her obsession only strengthens. Triton's sister Ursula, the castaway witch, offers her to get legs against her voice, so Ariel accepts but immediately forgets that she will need to get a true love's kiss in the next 3 days or be endebted to Ursula. When the prince sees Ariel, he doesn't recognize her as the woman who saved him because that one could sing. Still, they start to fall in love, until Ursula comes as a beautiful woman and pretends to be the one who saved him. They arrange for a wedding immediately, until Ariel intervenes and shows Ursula's true nature to the prince. In doing so, she also gains her voice back, and the prince finally sees her for who she is, but they don't manage to kiss before the end of the third day, and she turns back into a mermaid. Triton wants to save his daughter from the deal she made, so a huge fight results in Ursula's death. Seeing how unhappy Ariel is without the Prince, he transforms her into a human permanently, and the two loves live happily ever after, with the blessing of both their people. I don't remember much of the original movie, but this seems to be pretty much the same plot to the dot. I really loved the aesthetic of the "Under the Sea" song, full of colorful octopuses and jellyfishes! It wasn't as bad as I was expecting for a live action Disney movie, 3.5/5.
After Rocket is hurt is a fight with Sovereign warrior Adam, the Guardians discover that they can't use med-packs on him due to a kill switch installed by his creator, the High Evolutionary from Orgocorp. We see flashbacks into Rocket's past: born a raccoon, he was experimented on by the High Evolutionary, whose goal was to create a perfect society with antropomorphic animals. When Rocket's intelligence surpassed the one of the High Evolutionary however, he decided to kill Rocket to examine his brain, but Rocket managed to escape, although all his friends were killed in the process. In the present, the Guardians decide to travel to Orgocorp's headquarters to save Rocket, with the help of the Ravagers. In the headquarters, they find Rocket's file but not the kill switch code, so they travel to Counter-Earth, the High Evolutionary's "perfect" world, in order to find it in the local laboratory / spaceship, Arête. Confronted by Quill, the High Evolutionary admits that his Counter-Earth society is a failure and he destroys the planet and all its inhabitants. Quill manages to escape with the code to save Rocket, and heals his friend. The Guardians, with the help of the Revengers on Knowhere, take down Arête and save all the children and animals that were being experimented on inside, but they spare the High Evolutionary. Later, Quill decides to leave the Guardians, and names Rocket as captain, before travelling to Earth to reunite with his grandfather. I'm not usually a huge fan of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but this was actually pretty good! I love that the "anti-woke" crowd started to dunk on this movie because the women weren't sexy enough in the trailer, only to change their minds because the film was actually good and "not woke", whereas the whole plot is about fighting a fascist... Amazing. Anyway, 4/5.
Alex Claremont-Diaz is the son of Ellen Claremont, the first female president of the United States. He hates British Prince Henry, "spare" to the British Throne, and they have an embarassing fight during Henry's brother's wedding. To mitigate the incident's press fallout, Alex and Henry are forced into a series of staged interviews and joint public appearances during which they pose as friends. They slowly warm up to each other until they become real friends. At Alex's New Year's party, Henry leaves abruptly after seeing Alex kiss several girls at midnight. When Alex follows him and asks him what's wrong, Henry kisses Alex before running away and cutting all contact. Alex realizes he has feelings for Henry as well, and weeks later, they reunite during a presidential dinner and kiss again. They start to have a secret relationship, hidden from all but their best friends and their bodyguards, but Henry is very clear that he cannot let feelings get involved given his royal status. Alex helps his mother in her re-election campaign, and comes out to her - she is supportive, but advises him to think carefully before coming out publicly. Alex declares his love to Henry, who freaks out and flees, but Alex pursues him and after they have an honest conversation, they admit that they're both in love and that they will commit to the relationship. Shortly afterwards, Alex and Henry's personal emails - which include some sexting - are leaked to the press and a huge international scandal explodes in their faces. At first forbidden to talk to each other, Alex flies to London where he reunites with Henry. King James III summons them and tells them that they cannot be public because Henry belongs to the royal line, but they soon realize that crowds have gathered in support of them all over England, so they go out on the palace balcony and greet the crowd as an official couple. On election night, Henry returns to the United States to be with Alex. Alex's plan to win Texas for his mother ultimately results in her re-election. The plot was very close to the book's (which I've read a while ago), which I enjoyed, but there were a few details that gave some depth to the story that were unfortunately missing from the movie. Also I didn't love Henry's actor, and I felt like their chemistry wasn't amazing, but it wasn't awful either. This was good basic entertainment! 4/5.
Butcher's crew, now wanted fugitives, investigate a super terrorist who turns out to be Kimiko's younger brother, Kenji. Starlight gets a sample of Compound V and exposes the whole super baby scheme to the news, but Vought CEO Stan Edgar blames the late Stillwell for doing this in secret. Homelander scrambles for power and takes refuge with Becca and their son, imposing his presence to the family. The newest member of the Seven, Stormfront, pursues Kenji and kills him as well as many civilians, before blaming their deaths on him. The crew investigates Stormfront's past and discovers that she used to be a nazi (still is, actually) and one of the first supes, and commited several racist murders. Butcher gets his wife's location, but she refuses to come with him, knowing he wouldn't accept a supe kid. Queen Maeve tells her ex-girlfriend Elena she fears Homelander will kill her if he finds out about their relationship, and that's why she broke up in the first place - but then Homelander does find out and outs her on live television. Homelander's popularity takes a hit when a video of him killing civilians emerges, but Stormfront helps him thanks to her army of meme makers, and they start having a relationship. After discovering Stormfront is linked to a secret project, the crew discovers Compound V patients, that former Seven Lamplighter burns off when they become useless. Frenchie hates Lamplighter because he killed three children of their crew members many years ago, when Frenchie was supposed to trail him but had to leave momentarily to take care of his best friend ODing. They start to fight, which frees the patients and forces them to work together to survive. There, they learn that Lamplighter didn't know there were children in the house and regrets it everyday, and that Vought is attempting to stabilize powers in adult subjects to create a population of supes (more specifically, a white population, re: the nazi origins of the nazi Vought founder, dead husband of Stormfront). A powerful patient named Cindy escapes the facility. The leftist and anti-supe Congresswoman Victoria Neuman schedules a hearing against Vought, but Lamplighter, the main witness, kills himself before it, and the other witnesses just... explode before they are able to say anything. The Deep joins a cult, gets in an arranged mariage and enrolls A-Train to join as well. The cult leader manages to get A-Train to rejoin the Seven, but not The Deep, and he is killed by the mysterious assassin who blows people's heads... who is revealed to be Congresswoman Victoria Neuman. Maeve tells her girlfriend Elena that she is planning Homelander's downfall, and that she has a video of Homelander abandoning a hijacked airliner they failed to save as leverage against him, but Elena can't take the truth and breaks up with her. Homelander and Stormfront manipulate Ryan into leaving Becca, so Butcher makes a deal with Vought to get him back, but double crosses them and leaves with the boy. However, Stormfront catches up to them and Ryan burns her down (not killing her but close) and... he kills his mother, Becca, at the same time. He then saves Butcher from Homelander, so Butcher respects Becca's dying wish to forgive the boy, and brings him under CIA protection. The crew are cleared of all charges and Hughie takes a job with Neuman, unaware that she is the assassin. Another very good season! That whole 'oh the whole super hero business is based on nazi idealogy' plot twist was very good. Also the whole cult criticism was a bit easy but still nice. 4.5/5.
Hughie witnesses his girlfriend Robin being killed by celebrity superhero A-train just... accidentally running through her. After a period of shock, he allies with anti-superhero vigilante Billy Butcher to expose the flaws and vices of supes. Meanwhile, Annie is recruited into the Seven, the most elite superhero group, as Starlight - her powers absorb nearby electricity to create blinding lights and shockwaves. However, she's quickly brought back to reality when her new colleague The Deep blackmails her into giving him oral sex as soon as she arrives in the HQ, and when her new employer Vought blackmails her into wearing a more revealing costume. After Hughie tries to plant a bug in the Vought tower (the Seven HQ), Translucent (an invisible supe with diamond-hard skin) confronts him, but Hughie and Butcher manage to incapacitate and kidnap him. With the help of weapon-expert Frenchie, they insert dynamite in his colon and after a long internal conflict, Hughie blows him up. Afterwards, with the help of Mother's Milk, they start to spy on A-Train's girlfriend and learn that he takes a power-enhancing drug named Compound V, and that he was on it when he killed Robin. When visiting the drug hideout, the crew finds a Japanese woman imprisoned as a test subject, who kills all the guards and flees before they manage to re-capture her. Thanks to the has-been telepath Mesmer, the crew learns that the Japanese woman is named Kimiko and was kidnapped by the Shining Light Liberation Army terrorist group. Mesmer sells the crew to Homelander, so Butcher kills him. A-Train kills his girlfriend for betraying him. We're lead to believe that Homelander, the leader of the Seven, is the only ethical superhero, until we see him take down a plane full of innocents because one man on it crossed his mother figure/lover: Vought VP Madelyn Stillwell. Later, when Homelander and Queen Maeve try to save a hijacked plane, Homelander accidentally destroys the control panel and abandons the plane and all its passengers, forcing Maeve to do the same. Annie and Hughie randomly meet in a park and quickly become friends, but when he realizes that she's a supe he's pressured by Butcher to tape her phone and use her. Constantly torn between his crush on Annie and his mission to destroy supes, Hughie isn't honest with her until she learns from Vought that he's the one who killed Translucent. At first shocked, she ends up helping the crew. Butcher's crew discover that Vought injects Compound V in some babies to create superheroes; indeed, whereas supes are believed to be a gift from god, they are entirely manufactured by Vought. They also learn that Vought is making Compound V-boosted terrorists to push their agenda for militarizing Supes, although it's later revealed to be Homelander's own side project. Just when the FBI is about to charge Vought for creating supes, the existence of superhuman terrorist "Naqib" is revealed and changes plans. We learn that Homelander raped Butcher's wife, shortly before she disappeared, 8 years ago. Homelander is investigating what happened to her, and he learns that she was pregnant with his kid and has been in hiding with Vought ever since. The Deep is transferred to a useless position in Ohio to repent for the sexual assault, where he... gets sexually assaulted and has a mental breakdown. Learning of Homelander's weakness for Stillwell, Butcher takes her hostage, but Homelander kills her himself for lying to him about Becca and their kid. Homelander brings Butcher to see his wife and the kid. I love this TV show so much!! I'm a big fan of super hero movies, but am always very aware that they're full of copaganda and USA patriotism. It feels great to have the flip side of this, where the super heroes are still loved by everybody but they're actually pretty much super villains who care only about their image and not what good they can do for the world - even creating super villains to make themselves look good. This was super addictive and I couldn't stop watching it, 5/5.
Darth Vader begins an oppressive campaign against Lothal in order to find the Ghost crew, and especially the Jedi among them. The crew is divided between joining the larger rebel network and waging open war on the Empire, or staying out of a large-scale fight, but they end up agreeing to join the rest of the rebellion. Darth Vader & several Inquisitors are after them, and when they accidentally Vader to Ahsoka, both are shocked to discover that the other is alive - Ahsoka only realizing then that the Sith is her former master. Looking for a place to lay low, the Ghost crew meets with clones Captain Rex, Commander Wolffe & Gregor; at first very suspicious of them due to Order 66, the clones soon become great allies. After Ezra has a vision about his parents, the crew investigate a recent present break on Lothal; Ezra finds recent escapee and former Governor of Lothal, Ryder Azadi, who reveals that Ezra's parents heard his radio broadcast & were inspired to stage a prison break, but died in the process. Princess Leia helps the rebels "steal" some of her ships, and they also ally with famed Twi'lek resistance fighter Cham Syndulla, Hera's father. Looking for help from some Mandalorians, they realize that Fenn Rau and his Protectors now work for the empire, but they convince them to provide safe passage for them. While Zeb believed to be the last of his people, and felt immense guilt for the destruction of his world, the crew finds some other surviving Lasat! Together, they travel to the hidden world of Lira San, which is the true home planet of the Lasat, to be reunited with their people. The Ghost crew also makes friends with some hyperspace travelling space whales called purrgils. When Zeb and Agent Kallus get trapped on an iced planet and need to work together to survive, they start to understand each other better, and Kallus admits that he was always against the Lasat genocide, and that the Bo Rifle he uses, which he previously claimed to have stolen from a dead Lasat Honour Guard was actually given to him by the guard after defeating him in an honourable duel. The rebels find a new base. After a visit to a Jedi Temple - during which Kanan is awarded the title of Jedi Knight - Ahsoka, Ezra and Kanan go to Malachor, an ancient Sith world. There, Ezra meets Maul, and together with the rest of the crew, they manage to kill several of the Inquisitors after them. However, Maul soon betrays the group and blinds Kanan before revealing his true intentions of making Ezra his apprentice; despire his blindness, Kanan is able to defeat Maul, and the two Jedi recover a Sith Holocron. Ahsoka faces Darth Vader, but is unable to abandon her old Master when the temple starts to crumble on top of them. The crew finally escapes (without Ahsoka), and so do Darth Vader and Maul. Ezra, who was constantly warned about his proximity to the dark side, meditates with the Sith Holocron and finally succeeds in opening it. I found this season much better than the first one! Almost every episode brought a new interesting plot line, cameos of beloved characters or new loveable characters! It also feels like the stakes are higher, with the last episodes making the Ghost crew fight Darth Vader and Maul, the tension about Ezra's relationship to the Dark Side, and the real rebel alliance finally starting to take shape. Very nice, I hope it continues on that path, 4.5/5.
Favorite movie: Nimona
Noa is increasingly disillusioned with online dating as every guy she goes on dates with is an absolute asshole. One day, she randomly meets a man named Steve in a supermarket, and they exchange numbers after hitting it off. They go on a few dates, have sex, and everything seems to be going very well, so when Steve asks her out for a weekend, Noa agrees, against her best friend's advice. Planning to travel early in the morning, Noa spends the night at Steve's luxury home... and Steve drugs her. She wakes up chained in a fancy basement, where Steve explains that he's a butcher of human meat, which he sells to wealthy clients. He will keep Noa alive as long as he can so that her meat stays fresh, cutting her up piece by piece - starting with her butt, which he takes as punishment for Noa trying to escape. Noa talks with a woman in an adjacent room named Penny, and hears of another delirious woman, Melissa, who is apparently close to death. Noa's best friend Mollie becomes worried and starts to investigate, ultimately discovering Steve's real family - a wife and two children. Mollie goes to confront the wife, who denies everything but knocks Mollie out when Steve - real name Brendan - comes back. We learn that the wife is one of his ex victims because she has a leg missing, and she's now helping her husband to protect herself and her children. Noa gains Brendan's trust by flirting and pretending to be interested in what human meat tastes like, so he invites her to diner and persuades her to taste a fancy meal containing human meat, which she does and pretends to enjoy, before puking it out in her cell. Afterwards, we see that Brendan is starting to harvest meat from Mollie. During another dinner with Noa, Brendan shows her a hidden compartment filled with memorabilia from all of his victims, and Noa recognizes Mollie's phone amongst them... After convincing Brendan to have sex with her, Noa goes to give him a blowjob but instead bites his dick and runs away to free Mollie and Penny. They fight him in the kitchen before escaping in the woods, where Brendan pursues them with a gun. Mollie had shared her location with a friend, Paul, who shows up at the house but runs away when he hears gunshots. In the woods, they shoot Brendan dead, but his wife arrives and tries to kill Noa, who stabs her neck with some car keys before Mollie kills her with a shovel. As the three girls finally relax, Noa gets a text from an awful man she went on a date with at the beginning of the movie. I quite liked this movie! Of course I'm always up for some good old cannibalism, and when it's mixed with the horrors of the everyday life of being a woman, it can't be bad! 4/5.
I've already reviewed this movie here. Rewatched this with R and I was happy they liked it! It was also nice to rewatch it knowing who betrayed Ballister from the start. 5/5.
This movie follows the self-discovery journey of a 17 years old trans boy as he has a revelation after trying out some clothes from a classmate. Navigating romance and family relationships becomes complicated after he starts to come out and takes on the name Tosiek. I haven't watched many trans coming out stories like this that felt quite realistic and not overtly rooted in trauma. It wasn't mind blowing but I liked it, 4/5.
In a medieval-futuristic kingdom, the citizens are protected by the Institute for Elite Knights, established by the legendary heroine Gloreth, who, a thousand years ago, vanquished a "Great Black Monster" and enclosed the kingdom with a high wall for its protection. Ballister Boldheart, along with his boyfriend Ambrosius Goldenloin (the descendant of Gloreth), is about to be knighted, with Ballister being the first commoner to achieve this, as Queen Valerin is trying to change tradition so that "anyone can be a hero". During the ceremony, the Queen is murdered by a laser shot from Ballister's sword. Although we know he didn't orchestrate the murder, everybody else blames him for it, and Ambrosius even cuts his right arm to disarm him. Ballister goes into hiding, where he crafts himself a prosthetic replacement arm, and is visited by Nimona: a mysterious teenage shapeshifter, who has faced persecution for her powers and wants to become Ballister's sidekick. The duo interrogates the squire who gave Ballister his weapon, and he shows them a video of the Institute's Director replacing the sword. Ballister tries to show the video to Ambrosius, but the evidence is destroyed. Later, Ambrosius confronts the Director about her possible involvement, and she admits that she framed Ballister and murdered the Queen, because she was scared that allowing commoners to become knights would ultimately be the kingdom's downfall. The Director then kills Ambrosius, but he's revealed to be Nimona in disguise, so that Ballister could record the confession and post it online. The Director finds ancient scrolls that prove that Nimona is the "Great Black Monster" from Gloreth's time, and uses them to convince the public that Nimona faked her confession - this revealation also makes Ballister question his friendship with Nimona. Nimona reminisces the past: a thousand years ago, she befriended a child named Gloreth until the girl's village turned against Nimona because of her powers, and Gloreth took on that hate and fought her former friend. Torn between the past and present betrayals of her friends, Nimona breaks down and transforms into the "Great Black Monster". She goes into the city, wrecking chaos on her path but intending on committing suicide by impaling herself on the sword of Gloreth's statue. Ballister stops her just in time and apologizes, which allows Nimona to turn back to her human form as the whole kingdom watches. The Director orders a lazer strike on the "monster", even though it would destroy half of their kingdom, so Nimona transforms into a giant phoenix and sacrifices herself to stop the lazer to reach the civilians. The resulting explosion destroys part of the wall, and the kingdom realizes that there were no evil monsters behind it, but only a beautiful and peaceful countryside. Later, we see that the kingdom has undergone many changes: the breach in the wall has become a busy trade road, Nimona and Ballister are honored as heroes, and Ballister and Ambrosius are back together. Ballister visits his old hideout, and hears Nimona's voice... she has survived! Beautiful animation, touching story, great characters, immersive world building, and of course a beautiful trans allegory, this movie has it all! 5/5.
Favorite movie: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Favorite tv show: Yellowjackets Special mention: Slash/Back
On Earth-65, police captain George Stacy is obsessed by capturing Spider-Woman, unaware she's his daughter Gwen. One night, a Vulture arrives on Earth-65 from an Italian Renaissance-themed alternate universe, and two Spider-people - Miguel O'Hara and Jess Drew - arrive through a portal to help Gwen fight him. Gwen tells her father of her secret identity, and when he's still determined to arrest her, Miguel grants her an escape into the Spider-Society. In Brooklyn on Earth-1610, Miles Morales encounters the Spot, an Alchemax scientist whose body was infused with portals during the collider explosion. He reveals he's the one who brought the special spider which bit Miles from another dimension, Earth-42, before he starts to travel to other universes' Alchemax colliders to empower himself further. Gwen travels to Earth-1610 and secretly reconnects with Miles while tracking the Spot. Miles follows her through a portal to Earth-50101, and they team up with local Spider-Man Pavitr Prabhakar, as well as Hobie Brown, against the Spot. Miles saves Police Inspector Singh (the father of Pavitr's girlfriend), but that was a "canon event" so Earth-50101 begins falling apart before members of the Spider-Society arrive to contain the damage. Miles, Gwen, and Hobie are sent to the Society's headquarters on Earth-928, where hundreds of Spider-People reside inside a massive complex. There, Miguel explains to Miles that each of the Spider-People's stories throughout the multiverse entails "canon events", such as the death of a police captain close to Spider-Man, the death of an uncle figure to Spider-Man, and other string of events that define a Spider-Man; and straying from these events threatens reality and may cause that universe to collapse, and if that universe collapses, then the entire multiverse will eventually collapse as well. Miguel reveals he witnessed the collapse of another universe firsthand when attempting to replace a deceased version of himself from that universe. Miles realizes that the Spot murdering Jeff, his father who is set to be promoted to police captain in two days, is a canon event. Miguel imprisons Miles to prevent him from saving Jeff, but Hobie helps Miles break loose before quitting the Spider-Society. After sending the whole Spider-Society after him, Miguel corners Miles and tells him that he is the original anomaly: the spider that bit him came from Earth-42, resulting in Earth-42 having no Spider-Man. Miles flees to what he believes to be his home dimension, but is actually Earth-42, a dimension in which his father is dead, his uncle Aaron is alive, and... Miles himself is the Prowler! Considering Gwen a liability, a furious Miguel ejects her from the Society and forcibly sends her back to Earth-65. Once there, Gwen learns that George has resigned from his job as police captain, proving that it is possible for canon events to be safely averted. The two reconcile and George gives her a portal watch left by Hobie. As the Spot begins his multiversal attack, Gwen assembles a team to find Miles, consisting of Peter B., his daugther Mayday, Pavitr, Hobie, Margo Kess, Spider-Man Noir, Peni Parker, and Spider-Ham, while Miles prepares to escape from his uncle Aaron & Earth-42 Miles. This movie was soooo good! The aesthetic was absolutely mind blowing, just when we thought the first movie couldn't be topped, this one came in and changed the whole game. Amazing. I also loved the story, all the new and old characters, and the politics of it! When you think about it, Miguel, with his obsession with perfection and similarity between all the canon events, has some quite fascistic traits, while Hobbie is a true revolutionary hidding behind a punk aesthetic which makes people not take him seriously. I absolutely fell in love with Hobbie Brown / Spider Punk, btw. True MVP. This was amazing and the best part is that there will be a sequel for sure! Cannot wait, 5/5.
Set in Pangnirtung, Nunavut, a remote Inuit community, we follow four bored teenage girls as they decide to take a boat to go to the land, even though they've been warned to never go there without adult supervision. On the land, the girls spot a strange polar bear, which attacks Maika's little sister who happened to bike by. Maika, who took her father's rifle, shoots the bear and they all flee. Uki wants to know more about the strange polar bear so she goes back to the land, where she finds an alien artifact, as well as the still alive bear and an elk dragging a body and emptying it of its blood. Later, a police officer is attacked by the aliens and becomes a Skin: he retains his human appearance but behaves very strangely, because the alien is puppetering him from the inside. The Skin looks for Uki, and when the girls realize they cannot contact their parents because they're at a social dance, they decide to kill him themselves. They use Uki as bait, and the Skin actually manages to attack her and suck some blood off of her before her friends save her. Maika and Jesse follow the Skin to Maika's house, where the Skin is attacking her father. Maika gets knocked out and has a flash back to her dad teaching her about hunting. She awakens and slices the Skin's throat, killing it. A strong light beam shoots from the alien artifact and a space craft flies away. The girls celebrate their victory against the aliens! A month later, things went back to normal except news reporters come to the community regularly to ask about the aliens. When asked, Maika says she’s a hunter. Uki talks to the reporters and the movie ends. This movie was so good! I had never seen a science fiction movie with & by indigenous people, and it was so awesome to see! Actually, I probably haven't seen any fiction movie about indigenous people, only documentaries, so it was great to see something very different. I loved the mix of scifi references (especially to The Thing) and political ones (clearly some anti-colonizer message in there, reinforced by the Land Back logo flashing at the end of the movie). The girls were super badass and I would love to see many more movies like this one in the future! 4.5/5.
A journalist chronicles his life after his wife & him adopted a puppy, who grew into a giant, unrully dog. This was half cute half eye rolling. Very Y2K, very "two kids and a white fence" life we should all aspire to, but also some relatable dog parent moments. 3/5.
This is a documentary about heavy metal music: its different subgenres, as well as the culture surrounding it. It contains many interviews of famous bands and singers, as well as of fans. This was quite nice to see, especially as there were interviews of Dio & Lemmy, who have died since this was shot. It had aged a bit, but I watched it with this in mind and it was alright, 4/5.
I've already reviewed this movie here. Rewatched this with R so they get the basics of the story before going to see the 4th one with their brother in law. Loved it as always, but I think I've had my share of John Wick for now... 4.5/5.
The beginning of this story takes place 15 years after the start of the Empire. Street thief Ezra Bridger is an orphan on Lothal, an Outer Rim world. He gets in the way of the Ghost crew stealing from the Empire, and somehow ends up stuck with them. The crew consists of human Jedi Kanan Jarrus, Mandalorian Sabine Wren, Lasat Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Twi'lek pilot Hera Syndulla and her C1 astromech droid with a temper Chopper. Ezra discovers a lightsaber and a holocron in Kanan's room, and when he manages to open the holocron - something only people with a strong link to the Force can do - Kanan decides to train him as his padawan. At first, Kanan is unsure of his abilities in training an apprentice, as his own training was never finished (due to Order 66), but Ezra's desire to have him as a teacher wins him over. Noticing that Ezra tends to use the Dark Side of the Force when angered, Kanan brings him to a Jedi temple where the voice of Yoda brings him to a kyber crystal, thank to which Ezra builds his first light saber. At this point, the Ghost crew isn't an active rebel cell, but they do steal from the Empire and give to the people it hurt. Little by little, they start to do more missions for the growing rebellion, especially thanks to a mysterious informant, codenamed Fulcrum. They also go on a heist with Lando Calrissian along the way. It is revealed that Ezra's parents were arrested for making anti-Empire radio broadcasts, and nobody knows what has happened to them since. The crew's main enemy is Agent Kallus, an Empire soldier in charge of bringing peace to Lothal. He was also responsible for the genocide of the Lasats, of which Zeb is the only survivor. The Ghost crew manages to send out a message of rebellion and hope to nearby star systems from the Lothal radio tower before the Empire destroys it to stop them, but Kanan is emprisoned during this mission. The crew manages to free him, and he kill the Inquisitor who had been hunting him for a while. Afterwards, the Ghost crew is officially welcomed in the rebellion by Fulcrum, revealed to be Ahsoka Tano, and Senator Organa, who tell the group that they are just one cell out of many working for a larger rebellion. On Lothal, Tarkin introduces Agent Kallus to Darth Vader, who has been selected by Emperor Palpatine to hunt the rebels in the Inquisitor's place. This was alright. There were some nice cameos and some cool plot twists, but overall I was a little bit bored. I like the idea of learning more about the beginning of the rebellion, but this felt more "basic bland cartoon" and less "inspiring rebellion story". 3.5/5.
Favorite movie: John Wick: Chapter 4 Favorite tv show: We Are Lady Parts
A single mother and her two children, Trevor and Phoebe, move to her estranged father's farm after his death. During science summer school, Phoebe starts to wonder about the stranger earthquakes in town, and her questions are echoed by her teacher, a seismologist named Gary. Phoebe starts to think the farm is haunted, and shows the ghost trap she found to Gary and her new friend Podcast. Gary turns out to be a huge Ghostbusters fan, and realizes that Phoebe's grandfather was Egon Spengler, one of the original New York Ghostbusters! The ghost of Egon shows Phoebe the way to his old equipment, and Trevor, who had been repairing the old Cadillac Ecto-1 in his spare time, helps them hunt a nearby Muncher ghost. Phoebe calls the other original Ghostbusters, but they don't seem too kin to help, given that Egon left them after stealing all their equipment. Phoebe, Podcast, Trevor and his girlfriend Lucky find an old Gozerian temple in neaby mines, and some demons possess their mum as well as Gary to destroy the protective equipment Ergon had put in the mine. The kids discover that Egon's farm was a giant ghost trap, but when they try to trap the demon who escaped from the mine with it - Gozer - it malfunctions. The three surviving original ghostbusters arrive as reinforcements, and helped with Egon's ghost and the kids, they manage to restain Gozer. This was nice! It felt like good, basic entertainment. Loved the autistic Phoebe and I would watch anything with Finn Wolfhard. 4/5.
John Wick, with the help of the Bowery King, kills the Elder. In response the Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont, a High Table member, summons Winston and expresses his disappointment with the fact that Winster never made much efforts to kill John Wick. As punishment, he declares Winston excommunicado, destroys the Continental, and kills Charon. He then hires Caine, a blind assassin and old friend of John Wick, to kill John unless he wants his daughter to die. John flees to Osaka, where he takes refuge in the Continental run by his friend Koji and his daughter Akira. The Marquis' men come to hunt John, and Koji protects him despite his daughter's protests. The fight between John and Caine is interrupted by Mr. Nobody, a bounty hunter who wants to wait for John's bounty to be high enough to collect it himself. Caine still reluctantly kills Koji, and spares Akira. Back in New York, a vengeful Winston advises John to challenge the Marquis to a duel - the only problem is that you can only declare a challenge on behalf of a crime family. John travels to Berlin, where the local Ruska Roma asks him to kill a man in exchange for their help - which he of course does. The duel is decided - if John wins, he and Winston will both be absolved, and the NY Continental will be rebuilt. The Marquis' plan is to put a huge bounty on John ($26 million), hoping that he would either be killed before the duel or arrive late, which would result in his execution. Mr. Nobody, having by now negotiated a bounty increase to $40 million, also starts to hunt John, but when John saves his dog from another killer, Mr. Nobody switches sides and protects John. Caine, who's bound to fight on behalf of the Marquis during the duel, also assist John and the three of them struggle to climb the stairs to the Sacré-Cœur among the hordes of assassins. They arrive in time, and John and Caine start their duel. They wound each other in the first two turns, but on the third turn, Caine severely wounds John, who collapses. The Marquis eagerly asks to administer the coup de grâce, but John hadn't fired his third bullet, and is able to kill the Marquis with it. John and Caine are freed by the High Table, and Winston is reinstated as the Continental manager, but John succumbs to his injuries... The last John Wick movie?! Who knows! I liked the Japanese aesthetic in this one, and some parts of the French one - although some parts of it were extremely frustrating. And the Arc de Triomphe fight was sooooo long. Well, this movie was very long. But mostly good! 4.5/5.
John Wick has one hour before he's declared excommunicado, so he goes to get a rosary hidden in a public library, but a hitman injured him on his way. He asks for help from an underground doctor, but has to finish stitching himself up as his excommunicado time starts. He then uses the rosary to ask for help from the Ruska Roma, and it's revealed that his birth name is Jardani Jovonovich. The Ruska Roma give John safe passage to Casablanca, where he meets with Sofia, the manager of the local Continental who owes him a marker. Meanwhile, the High Table sends an Adjudicator, who wounds the Ruska Roma director, and asks both the Bowery King and Winston to step down from their positions as punishment for helping John. John asks Sofia to take her to the Elder, the only man above the High Table, so she brings him to Berrada, who tells John to walk into the desert until he's almost dead. Berrada asks for one of Sofia's dogs, and when the refuses, he shots the dog - thankfully only hitting his bulletproof jacket - which starts a fight. John later starts to walk in the desert until he collapses, and is brought to the Elder. He says he wants to keep on living to honor his wife's memory, and the Elder agrees if John kills Winston. To show his fealty, John cuts his ring finger and offers his ring to the Elder. The Bowery king refuses to abdicate and receives numerous cuts in punishment. Winston also refuses to abdicate, so the Adjudicator desecrates the Continental. Back in New York, John refuses to kill Winston and instead sides with him and the concierge Charon to protect the hotel from the High Table army. The Adjudicator parleys with Winston, who offers his allegiance to the High Table back, and when John arrives Winston shoots him. John falls to the street below, from where he's brough to the barely alive Bowery King. Good old John Wick movie! The fight with the dogs in Casablanca was pretty badass! I was a bit confused by why John went to all this effort to meet the Elder, even cutting his own finger and giving up his wedding ring, only to immediately betray him at the first occasion... but yeah. Also nonbinary Adjudicator 10/10 I adore them. 4/5.
Favorite movie: The Girl with All the Gifts Favorite tv show: The Last of Us Special mention: Entergalactic
The movie starts with John Wick killing a bunch of people to get his car back - in an awful state, but he gives it to his friend & chop shop owner Aurelio who promises he can fix it. Afterwards, John burries his guns & special gold coins back to his basement, and just as he sits down from the task, his doorbell ring. At the door is Santino D'Antonio, the local Camorra (Italian mafia) boss, to whom John is endebted because he helped him buy his freedom. John is bound by the underground rules to do whatever Santino asks of him, but he refuses - wanting to stay out of business - so Santino bombs his home. The Continental's owner, Winston, reminds John that he can't refuse a debt, so John agrees to do Santino's task: kill his sister, so he can get her seat at the High Table, a council of 12 high level crime bosses. John finds the sister, who quickly understands she is about to die, and kills herself instead. Her bodyguards pursue John, and so do Santino's henchmen who want to "tie up loose ends". He kills them all, but soon learns that Santino put a $7 million bounty on him. Now that the debt has been completed, John is free to kill Santino, and he absolutely intends to do so. He gets help from the Bowery King, a man who knows everything going on in the city by relying on a network of homeless people and pigeons. Learning that Santino is in a museum, John goes there with only one pistol and seven bullets, kills all his bodyguards (a classic), but Santino manages to escape to the Continental. In the Continental, Santino tells John that he can stay here forever, and John won't be able to kill him... to which John answers by killing him. As a consequence for this, the Camorra doubles the bounty on him, and Winston declares him excommunicado - unable to access any underworld resources (hotels, gun sellers, tailors, etc.), only giving him a one hour headstart. As the news starts to spread through the world, John starts to run. Another great John Wick movie! I'm not sure why I loved this one slightly less than the previous one, but it was still great. I also loved that the ending was such a cliff hanger, now I really want to watch the 3rd one! 4/5.
John Wick is a retired assassin, who bought his freedom to spend his life with his wife. However, his wife dies from an illness when they're still young. The day after her funeral, he receives a puppy named Daisy, her final gift so he's not alone. The next day, he's harrassed by a bunch of Russian youngsters who want to buy his car, and the same night, they come to his home, kill his dog and steal his car... So he goes out of retirement and hunts them. The leader of the Russian guys, Iosef, is the son of Viggo Tarasof, the leader of the New York Russian Mafia. When Viggo learns that his son attakced John Wick, he's scared and angry, and punishes his son before using him as bait to kill John Wick. Indeed, John Wick is nicknamed Baba Yaga, the Boogeyman, because he's one of the best assassins out there. John kills all of Iosef's bodyguards, but the man manages to escape. Viggo puts a bounty on Wick, but his old friend Marcus protects him from afar. John lives in the Continental hotel during his stay in New York, a place where underground crime is forbidden; when one assassin tries to kill him there, she's killed by the staff for breaking the rules. John threatens Viggo into revealing where his son is, and he goes to kill all the bodyguards again... and the son. As he's about to go back to his civilian life, Viggo brags about killing Marcus, so John goes back and kills Viggo (in a harbor, just as he's about to escape by helicopter). Deeply wounded, John watches an old video of his wife, then breaks into an animal clinic to treat his wounds and take a pit bull puppy scheduled to be euthanized from there. I just love the John Wick movies so much? I don't really want to love them, because they're extremely violent, but I just do. Maybe it's because I'm weak for Keanu, maybe it's because they're just amazingly beautiful, or maybe it's because the violence feels extremely efficient and satisfying, like watching a pro playing video games. Either way, they're great! 4.5/5.
Han has to flee his birth planet, Corellia, but has no choice but to leave his girlfriend, Qi'ra, behind. To flee, he enrolls as a stormtrooper - well, first as a pilot, but he soon gets kicked out of the academy. Three years later, while fighting on the front, he finds out a bunch of thieves disguised as soldiers trying to steal Imperial property, and he decides to team up with them. At first they don't want him and denounce him, so he ends up locked with Chewbacca, but they help each other escape, after which the thieves agree to let them join. They get a job in which they have to steal some coaxium, but Enfys Nest show up and the shipment explodes. The job was for Crimson Dawn, so when they return empty handed they expect to be killed, but Qi'ra now works for their leader Dryden Vos and intercedes in their favor. The team has a second chance, so they go get the fastest ship out there, aka the Millenium Falcon, from Lando Calrissian and they go steal some unrefined spice from the Pikes. They manage to get the spice to a refinery before it gets unstable, but Enfys Nest is waiting for them there. It's revealed that they are actually a collective trying to help poor people and the rebellion across the universe, so Han decides to trick Crimson Dawn to give the coxium back to Enfys Nest. There are betrayals after betrayals (the thief team's chief betrays Han, but he had planned for it, so then he betrays Dryden Vos, and then Qi'ra says she's going to come live with Han, except she kills her boss and takes his spot instead) and by the end, Han and Chewbacca are alone aboard the Millenium Falcon, ready for new adventures! This feels more like a Disney+ special than a proper movie, but it was entertaining! 4/5.
The preacher's daughter is in love with another girl... in the Middle Ages. When their relationship is discovered, the girlfriend is burnt as a witch, so the daughter takes revenge by burning the church. I watched this with Riikka because of Bella Ramsey, and it was good! Short film available for free on YouTube. 4.5/5.
Jabari is a street artist who just got hired to make his own comic book. His neighboor is Meadow, a photographer whom he keeps meeting. They slowly fall in love, although Jabari's ex tries to come in between them. The plot is simple but nice, but it's really the graphics that blew me away - very Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - as well as the music. I just learnt that this was actually made as a companion to the album by the same name from Kid Cudi, and now I have to listen to it properly! This was great, 4.5/5.
In an apocalyptic future, zombies have taken over the world, and their illness comes from a cordyceps mushroom. A few kids, whose mother got bitten while they were pregnant, form a symbiosis with the mushroom: while they're still hungry for human flesh, they are able to communicate and behave much like normal humans. These kids are kept in an army facility, where a doctor is looking for a cure, and evaluating their level of symbiosis. There, one kid named Melanie looks exceptionally gifted and forms a friendship with her teacher Miss Justineau. Melanie is soon selected to be killed to make the cure, but at the same time, zombies overrun the facility. Melanie escapes with Miss Justineau, the surgeon, and a few military men. They go to London, where Melanie helps them navigate the zombies, and they find a facility where they can create the cure. However, Melanie asks why should her life be sacrificed so that humans would survive, and she sets fire to mushroom pods, which make the air unbreatheable for humans. Miss Justineau is safe in her small facility, and she soon starts to teach the kids who survived (both the ones from the original facility and the ones who survived on their own in the town) through her window. This was so good! Super fun how they also used the concept of cordyceps mushroom zombies, and the story and characters were so good, I loved it! 5/5.
Three "ghost busting" friends visit an old Taiwanese village where people worship a goddess and have a "forbidden tunel". At night, 2 of them sneak in the tunnel and are soon dead, and the only survivor, a woman, runs away. She's sure to be cursed, and is pregnant at the time, so when her daughter is born she's taken away. The woman spends years in a psychiatric hospital learning that her fears of the curse are in her mind, and that there's no danger, before she can take her daugther again. But as soon as she takes her, the daughter starts to be cursed. She goes to a local priest who tells her to no eat for 7 days, but soon the state of her daughter deteriorates and she has to break the fast; returning to the priest, she finds him dead, having been killed by the goddess because she broke the fast. The asks for help from her daughter's foster dad, but he can't stop himself from watching the video from the tunnel and he soon dies. The mother shows the video in the movie, and then asks to recipe a protective incantation, only to then reveal that the incantation is a curse, and that the more the curse will be spread, the less her daughter will be affected. At the end of the movie, her daughter is between life and death in the ICU, and the mother goes back to the forbidden tunnel to sacrifice herself in the hopes of saving her. This was a nice found footage movie! Nothing too amazing, but I enjoyed it. Big tripophobia warning! 4/5.
A princess and a poor girl are born on the same day and look very much alike; also, they both dream of a different life. They become friends, switch places, and defeat the evil court people who want to steal the throne. In the end, they both get their dreams: the princess marries the gardener she's in love with, and the poor girl marries the prince who was supposed to marry the princess. They have a double wedding and it's all very gay. Watched this while sick with Riikka because of a video of how Barbie movies were pretty gay. Can't disagree there. 3/5.
While rescuing Supreme Chancellor Palpatine from the Separatists, Anakin kill Count Dooku against the Jedi Code. He reunites with Padmé, who reveals that she's pregnant; at first exited, Anakin starts to have dreams of her dying in childbirth, and becomes obsessed by the idea of saving her. Anakin is frustrated to not be made a Jedi Master yet, and when he's instructed to spy on Palpatine for the Jedis, he loses his trust in the Order. Obi-Wan finds Grievous and kills him. Palpatine offers Anakin the power to save Padmé, which makes him realize that Palpatine is a Sith Lord. He warns Jedi Master Windu, who goes to fight Palpatine, but realizing that the Sith is his only way to save Padmé, Anakin saves him. Anakin is knighted by Darth Sidious / Palpatine and given the name Darth Vader. Palpatine then issues Order 66, which commands all clone troopers to kill Jedi across the galaxy, which they immeditely start doing, while Vader goes to kill all Jedi (including kids) in the temple. Palpatine declares himself Emperor, thus transforming the Republic into the Galactic Empire. Yoda goes to face Palpatine while Obi-Wan goes to face Anakin. Anakin has been sent to kill the Separatists leaders on Mustafar, and after learning of his recent actions, Padmé goes to him to convince him to leave the dark side, but he refuses. Finding out that Obi-Wan was on Padmé's ship (as a stoaway), Anakin gets in a rage and strangles Padmé before Obi-Wan starts fighting him. Obi-Wan cuts off Anakin's legs and arms and leaves him to burn on the bank of a volcano, takes his light saber and leaves with Padmé. Yoda doesn't manage to defeat Palpatine, so he flees with Senator Organa. Padmé gives birth to twins, Luke and Leia, and dies soon after, still believing that there's some good in Anakin. Palpatine recovers Anakin and takes him to a medical facility, where his mutilated body is treated and covered in a protective armor. Palpatine lies to Anakin and tells him that he killed Padmé. Senator Organa adopts Leia in Alderaan, and Luke goes to his step uncle and aunt on Tatooine. Obi-Wan will watch over the boy, and Palpatine and Anakin oversee the construction of the Death Star. Not the best Star Wars movie, but there were some good moments, and it was entertaining. The slow fall of Anakin into the Dark Side is definitely interesting! 4/5.
Jordan Belfort is a stockbroker who quickly learns that his only goal is to make money for himself, and fuck everybody else. After Black Monday, he creates his own company and quickly grows by abusing poor people. He cheats on his wife, does a lot of drugs and spends his money in flashy stuff. He's an asshole. At some point the feds are after him. Like... eh. This was a good movie, but I'm so disgusted by the stockbroker lifestyle to begin with that it was quite repulsive to watch. I think someone who would enjoy this movie best is someone who idolizes this lifestyle, and then has to deal with the emotions of seeing the darker side of it? But as someone who's already sold on the idea that it's gross, it was just pilling up on top of that and not even really enjoying the downfall of the dude. Idk. Still the movie was beautiful. 4/5.
Rex and the Bad Batch - an elite commando made up of clones with desirable mutations - investigate who's giving such good battle plans to the Separatists and find that Echo, a clone that was thought to have been killed in previous fights, was still alive and being used by the Separatists. Echo has been heavily modified by the Separatists so he can directly plug in computers, and he chooses to join the Bad Batch after his rescue. No longer a Jedi, Ahsoka befriends a mechanic, and helps her in missions with her reckless sister. After a particularly difficult situation with the Pykes (drug dealers), Ahsoka is approached by Bo-Katan, who left Death Watch after Darth Maul's takeover. Bo-Katan wants Ahsoka, and potentially her Jedi friends, to help her capture Darth Maul. They go with a few clones to Mandalore and capture the Sith, only for the sleeper agent chip to turn all the clones against them. Ahsoka manages to remove the chip from Rex, and they escape, but so does Darth Maul. The clone's ship crashes, and Ahsoka and Rex go to burry the bodies of their former friends. Ahsoka abandons her light sabers there, and years later, Darth Vader picks them back up... Ahsoka and the Bad Batch were really the focus of this season, and I liked it! Also between whatever she got going on with Trace Martez and Bo-Katan, Ahsoka was super gay this season, just saying... it was good to have her back! The last scene of Darth Vader picking up Ahsoka's lightsaber in the snow was soooo beautiful and amazing, wow! This was a good last season, and made me excited to watch The Bad Batch next! 4.5/5.
A clone named Tup suffers a severe neurological disorder that makes him kill a Jedi. He's taken to Kamino for investigation, but there's a few obstacles: first the Separatists try to capture him, then the authorities on Kamino want to kill him and dismiss the case rather than investigate. The clone Fives comes with him to Kamino and ends up doing the investigation on his own, fearing there's a conspiracy afoot. Fives finds that Tup has an organic chip which malfunctioned; every clone has this chip... and it's unclear what it does. Although the authorities on Kamino say it's there simply to make clones more compliant, Fives fears it makes them all sleeper agents ready to turn on the Jedis. Fives tries to show his discoveries to Palpatine, only for the Chancellor to reveal that's indeed the plan before he tries to kill him... Fives tries to then tell the truth to Anakin and clone Rex, but they have trouble understanding him through the panic (and the apparent absurdity of Palpatine working against the Jedis) and he ends up shot by another clone... While checking on the banks on Scipio, Padmé Amidala meets with Republic traitor Rush Clovis who assures her he's neutral again, but noticed that the banks are empty because the Separatists aren't paying the interests of their loans. Together, they get proof of the bank's deception, and bring it to Cosruscant, where Clovis is elected to replace the bank leaders. Back on Scipio, Dooku immediately starts to blackmain Clovis, which causes the Republic to invade the planet, and Clovis dies in the battle. Jedi Master Mace Windu and Jar Jar Binks investigate the disappearance of elders on the neutral world of Bardotta, and discover that a Nightsister was trying to steal their life Force. The crashed ship of deceased Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas is found, and his death is investigated. Sifo-Dyas is the one who secretly ordered the clone army for the republic (and the sleeping agent chip coming with it), and the Jedi discover that he used to be a Sith, which makes them start to doubt their army. Yoda starts to hear Qui-Gon Jinn's voice, which should be impossible considering he's dead. Qui-Gon Jinn tells him that to save the Jedi, Yoda has to learn how to make his spirit survive after death, so Yoda goes on several quests and trials to learn how to do so. This season had much more lore than the previous ones! Most of the story arcs announced the future of the clone army as servants of the Siths, and I thought it was very well done! And the last story arc, explaining Yoda's actions in A New Hope was great as well. I loved how it gave more insight to the movies, rather than just some extra quests and fights like most other seasons were. 4.5/5.
While Janet Van Dyne was trapped in the Quantum Realm, she met a fellow traveller named Kang. They became friends and she helped him repair his ship, only to discover that he was a dangerous multiverse conqueror, so she sabotaged him and condemned him to stay trapped in the Quantum Realm. Kang still used what was left of his technology to build a totalitarian empire, awaiting the return of someone with Pim particles technology to repair his ship and allow him to escape. On Earth, Janet has never talked about this to anyone, so when Cassie reveals she's made a devide that pings the Quantum Realm and that Janet panics, nobody understands why. Things had been going pretty well, with Scott touring his memoir and dating Hope, and Cassie getting involved in politics to the annoyance of her father. But when Cassie shows her device to her family, it suddenly explodes and sucks them all in the Quantum Realm. There, they discover a whole new world, with flora and fauna and populations, civilizations and politics. They get attacked by Kang's army, led by MODOK, who turns out to be Darren Cross / Yellowjacket that Scott send to the Quantum Realm in the first Ant-Man movie. They are captured, and Kang forces Scott to retrieve the power core that Janet had destroyed with Pim Particles. Ants, which had also been absorbed in the Quantum Realm, help them fight back, and they also convince the Realm's population (and MODOK) to rise against Kang. Scott destroys the power core and knocks Kang into it, apparently destroying him, and they all go back to Earth. Scott happily resumes his life, until he begins to rethink what he was told about Kang's death being the start of something terrible happening, but brushes it off. Later, numerous variants of Kang are concerned by Earth-616's increasing interest in the multiverse and plan their uprising. Also, Loki and Mobius locate another Kang variant, named Victor Timely, on Earth in the 1900s. This wasn't... great. It wasn't too bad either, but eh. I usually like Ant-Man movies because they're quite simple and down to earth, but this was just going everywhere and I wasn't impressed. 3.5/5.
Ahsoka, Anakin, Rex, and Obi-Wan go to help some rebels train on the Separatist world of Onderon, but aren't allowed to fight directly. Among the rebels is Lux Bonteri, Ahsoka's love interest. Together, they manage to save the previous king from execution, and later take back the whole planet. Ahsoka and Yoda take a group of younglings to a cave on Ilum to perform a Jedi rite of passage called "The Gathering", where they will each have to face an internal fear or flaw in order to retrieve a Kyber crystal so they can begin building their own lightsabers. On their way back to Coruscant, Aksoka and the younglings are attacked and captured by the space pirate Hondo, before he himself gets attacked by Dooku so they have to join forces together to defeat his forces. R2-D2 is chosen for an important droid team mission, led by small Colonel Meebur Gascon. The manage their job, but their ship crashes on a desolate plannet, and they struggle to know where to go. They finally find a town which is Separatist-controlled, where they find a clone who lost his memory. After they all manage to escape this planet, they realize that the ship they're on is a giant bomb headed to a Republic space station, and they work together to avoid the attack. Darth Maul and his brother Savage Opress ally with the Mandalorian group Death Watch and other crime syndicates to take over Mandalore, a neutral system. They do manage to take the planet and imprison Duchess Satine, and later the leader of Death Watch, Pre Vizsla, betrays Darth Maul, who in turn kills him. A part of Death Watch, led by Satine's sister, doesn't want to be under Darth Maul's rule, and instead contacts the Jedis. Because this is a neutral planet, the concil doesn't want to intervene, but because of Obi-Wan's feelings for Satine, he comes to rescue her, but is unable to save her life... Darth Sidious comes to Mandalore and, seeing Darth Maul as a rival, he kills Savage Opress and captures Maul. Anakin and Ahsoka investigate a terrorist bombing at the Jedi Temple, but soon, Ahsoka is accused of murdering the only lead, and thus of having organized the bombing herself. The young padawan is being framed, and no one believes her, so she escapes but is soon captured and put to trial. Just as she's about to be found guilta, Anakin arrives with the real traitor: Ahsoka's friend and Jedi, Barriss, who believes the Jedi have become too militarized and are now fighting for the Dark Side. Ahsoka is free but, disappointed of not having been supported by the Jedi council, she decides to leave the order... Going back to my old Star Wars marathon because I just want to watch the Mandalorian so bad! Some really cool story arcs this season. Can't believe Ahsoka left... I loved her so much! I hope she'll be back in some way <3 4/5.
Favorite movie: Grave Favorite tv show: Chernobyl Special mentions: The Menu & Ready or Not
During a mission on Mars, some astronauts are warned of a storm and decide to leave the planet early, but one of them gets hit by a flying antenna and is left for dead. Mark Watney wakes up alone on Mars the next day, and starts to count his food rations as well as starting to try and grow potatoes - he's a botanist, the best botanist on the planet even, so it works. After a while, satelite images show him to Earth, who realizes that he's alive and start to try and mount rescue missions. He unearths an old Mars rover and uses it to communicate with Earth, so he can get news, as well as survival tips. When the rest of his crew learn of his situation, they decide to prolong their journey to come and get him, which they eventually manage to do, despite many obstacles. I liked this movie. It had space (my beloved), adventure, suspence, survival, and surprisingly a lot of humour! Just a good feel good movie, 4/5.
When famous chef Carl Casper learns an important critic is coming to his restaurant, he wants to change his whole menu, but the restaurant owner forces him to uses his classics... which results in a bad review. Angry and frustrated, he vents on Twitter - which he doesn't know how to use - accidentally insulting the critic in public. When he invites him to his restaurant again and that the owner forbids him from changing his menu once more, he quits and insults the critic, which quickly goes viral online. Humiliated and unemployed, he accepts his ex-wife's invitation to go take a break in Miami and take care of their son. There, he gets a food truck and finds pleasure in cooking again, with the help of his long time sous-chef and his son. They travel through the US, and the kid helps them with social media, so they become more and more famous. At the end of the trip, the critic comes to tell Carl that his food is delicious, and that he would like to back them to open a restaurant. Carl gets back with his ex wife. This was nice. The main character was very frustrating, but I liked the part about the food, and it was entertaining enough. Apparently Jon Favreau (writer, directer and main character) made this movie as a commentary on how Cowboys vs Aliens was a bad movie because his creativity was restricted. 3.5/5.
We follow the beginning of the Chernobyl disaster, the denial of the first hours and days about how bad the situation is (because the view of the reactor was obstructed and that a reactor exploding was theoretically impossible, nobody wanted to believe it had happened at first) to the painful but quick emergency response. Looking at the decisions that were taken and the sacrifices of many to prevent this disaster to become much worse than it already was. This TV show was really good! I mostly knew about Chernobyl by name, but this really put into perspective how bad it was, and how much worse it could have been. I just couldn't stop watching! 4.5/5.
A new teacher, Mike, befriends Kate and they start to have a relationship, but after a while she starts to realize that he has been sent to investigate on the identity of Gossip Girl. When he denounces Kate, Jordan sacrificies himself instead. Obie start to get more serious with his girlfriend Grace until it's revealed that she's cheating on him... with her own brother. Alright then. So he ends up back together with Julian. He also gets disowned by his mother, and then his sister uses him to take down their mum so she can take over their company. Zoya and Julien find out that Nick had been accepting money from Julien's father & sexual predator, so they move out temporarily. Max breaks up with Aki and Audrey because they won't go public, but then they decide to try and make it work, and end up outing themselves by mistake. Later they think Aki is cheating when he isn't, but then he does kiss someone else, and then Max says he's in love with the two others but they don't reciprocate so they break up again. Monet is in crisis, trying to be the queen of the school and to rebel against her mum and to be visible and respected as a queer black woman. She finds out her parents are having a relationship with the same woman. Luna finds out that her mother is Spanish, not Mexican, and faked her identity for fame; on top of that, her mother never wanted a daughter because she feels much too jealous of Luna's youth and beauty. This season was exhausting. It felt like the drama was the exact same at every episode. Plus I wish they wouldn't try to instigate so much drama in the Aki/Audrey/Max throuple, can't we just have happy queer people being happy together? Ugh. 2.5/5.
A family where everybody's a vet and vegetarian is driving their youngest daughter to vet school, where she will be reunited with her big sister. Her sister is disappointingly avoidant as Justine goes through a painful week-long hazing process. On their first day, they are covered in blood and forced to eat raw rabbit liver; Justice tries to refuse and asks her sister for help, but Alexia forces her to eat the meat instead. Justine develops an intense rash and is prescribed cream to help with it. But worse than the allergy, Justine starts having a craving for meat, which she's deeply ashamed of. She first steals a steak, then eats a kebab, before eating her roomate's raw chicken. While Alexia is trying to give her a bikini wax, she cuts part of her finger off and passes out; Justine can't help but taste and eat her whole finger... The next morning, Alexia takes Justine out and jumps in front of a car, causing it to crash, before starting to eat the dead passengers; Justine freaks out. When kissing a guy, Justice bits his lip too strongly, then has sex with her gay roomate Adrien, and bites herself while orgasming to stop herself from biting him. At another party, Justine blacks out but the next day sees in a video that Alexia publicly humiliated her in a morgue, egging her to take a bite of a corpse to the disgust of other students. They fight and bite each other before being separated. The next morning, Justine wakes up next to Adrian and finds him dead, with most of his leg bitten off, and Alexia being nearby. Alexia is imprisoned for Adrian's murder, and Justine talks with her dad, who reveals that their mother is the same as them when he opens his shirt which shows a lot of deep bites and wounds. He tells Justine he hopes she will find a solution. This movie just... put my brain in a blender and poured it back in my skull inside out. It made me realize that all the other horror movies I watched had been American, and this was so completely different, it just blew me away, I loved it! Also I really hope that anybody romantizing France is any way would watch this movie, this was the most accurate French movie I've ever seen. I just keep going back to think about this masterpiece. Wow. 4.5/5.
After having sex with her boyfriend for the first time, the guy ties Jay to a chair and explains her that he sexually transmitted a curse to her, and that someone will start to follow her; if the person reaches her, she will die. Traumatized by the even, it doesn't take long before she starts to see strange people follow her, and soon she manages to convince her friends this is real, especially when something invisible start to hurt them. She has sex with a friend, and he gets killed very soon after. She then has sex with three guys, hoping that they will spread it far enough, but it comes back to her. She tries to lay traps for the creature but nothing works, so she ends up having sex with another friend, who goes to see prostitutes, hoping to stave it off. At the end of the movie, Jay and the friend walk end in end, and someone is potentially following them. This was interesting, and I quite liked it! Watched with Kenza. I'm glad this was only about straight people, or the AIDS similarities would have been a bit too painful. 4/5.
A young woman is marrying into a rich family, which made its money from board games. At midnight on the night of the wedding, she has to pick a card which will decide which game she will play with her new family, a mandatory tradition. She picks "Hide and Seek", and quickly realize that this was the wrong card to pick, as the whole family starts to chase her to try and kill her. They justify it by saying that if they don't kill her by sunrise, they will all die, as that's the pact they made with the devil for their riches. Her new husband tries to protect her at first, but when she kills his mother in self defence, he turns on her. She manages to last until sunrise, and the family all explodes one after the other. She goes out covered in blood to smoke a cigarette in front of the burning mansion in the early morning, and when the police arrives and asks her what happened, she simply answers "in-laws". This was so entertaining! I absolutely loved to see the progression of the bride from smiling and in love to confused, scared, then ready to fight, and then ending up smiling brightly again when the family started to explode - and to see her wedding dress get more and more bloody and ripped apart. It was a simple but very satisfying movie, 4.5/5!
I've watched this movie twice before, the summary is here. It doesn't get old, this time we watched it with my mother in law! 5/5
A mockumentary of a fake heavy metal band in the 80s. Their tribulations include playing in the weirdest/smallest venues because they are being boycotted in the US for their sexist album cover, losing some bandmates, having every drummer die in strange circumstances etc. This was fun, and I understand why it's a highly reference classic, but it's not mind blowing either, 3/5.
Tyler and his date Margot are going to eat diner in Hawthorn, a prestigious restaurant located on an island, and whose chef is the famous Julian Slowik. Tyler is clearly a foodie, mentioning he watched Chef's Table many times, and being upset by Margot's lack of interest for the food. Other guests are a food critic, an actor, some wealthy regulars and some tech bros. The maître d'hôtel, Elsa, gives the guests a tour of the island (where all the restaurant's food comes from), and notes that Margot was not the planned guest; Tyler was originally supposed to bring his ex girlfriend. Slowik makes increasingly unsettling speeches while introducing each speech, and during the third course (tacos), the guests scandals (affairs, embezzlement, etc) are printed on their tortillas. But things really take a turn for the worst when the sous-chef shoots himself in the face for the forth meal... One guest tries to leave, and the waiters cut his ring finger in retaliation, at which point everybody starts to realize this is really happening. Looking out of the window, the guests realize Slowik is drowning the restaurant's owner, declaring he's now free from his shackles. Ahead of the fifth course, one of the cooks talk about Slowik's sexual harrassment history, before chasing the male guests around the island, and having all the women eat a course together. The men are brought back unharmed, and Slowik explains that everybody will die, because they are exploitative people... or just starred in a movie he disliked. Because Margot wasn't a planned guest, he gives her the choice to pick her team, and when she hesitates the chef decides she belongs with the staff. It's also revealed that she's an escort Tyler hired because he couldn't attend the diner alone. Tyler was the only guest who seemed too obsessed by the food to panic, but it's later revealed that Slowik had told him about the killing, and that Tyler willingly hired Margot knowing she would be killed. Slowik makes Tyler cook in the kitchen, which he immediately panics about and delivers something so awful, the chef manages to convince him to kill himself... Slowik sends Margot to grab a barrel from the outside, and she takes the opportunity to check the chef's house. Elsa sees her and attacks her, saying she doesn't want Margot to replace her, and Margot kills her with a kitchen knife before finding a radio and calling for help. A boat soon arrives, with a coast guard checking that everything is going well, but when one of the guest manages to discreetly ask for help, the guard reveals himself to be part of the chef's plot. As dessert is being prepared, and sensing that the end is near, Margot says she disliked the food that was served, that it lacked love and that she's still starving. Remembering a picture of a young and happy Slowik cooking a hamburger, she asks the chef to make her a burger, and he obliges. Slowik finds joy in cooking again while making the burger, and Margot finds it delicious, but after taking a single bite, she asks it to go. The chef agrees and lets her leave, so she takes the boat and gets away. The desert is s'mores, with the guests being dressed up with marshmallow capes and chocolate hats, while fire is set to the whole restaurant. From her boat, Margot finishes her burger while watching the restaurant burn, and wipes her mouth on the menu. I really loved this movie! Of course, a horror movie about fine dining sounds like exactly my thing, so I wasn't too surprised. But there were also so many things in it, that it was a pleasure to think back to it and continue analizing it for the next few days - I actually wrote a whole thread about it here. But in summary, I loved how the main theme was that capitalism corrupts both the artist and the consumers. In the beginning, I thought the chef was having a cool "kill the rich" moment, but as the movie progressed, I started to understand that there were no good guys in this movie, and that everybody was awful - except Margot, maybe. 5/5 would watch again.
Barney, a gay trans boy, and Norma, an autistic girl, both get a job at their local amusement park at the same time... except it turns out they're only here to serve as sacrifices to a demon, which they manage to defeat. From there on, and with the help of Barney's dog Pugsley, who gained the ability to talk after being posessed by the demon, they will protect the park from all kinds of paranormal threats. Barney has a crush on his colleague Logs, and they end up dating. He also starts to live at the park because he's on complicated terms with his family, who allow his bigotted grand mother to bully him. The amusement park is mainly about Pauline Phoenix, an actress Norma is obsessed with. It turns out that Pauline died a long time ago and has been posessing her impersonators, and in the finale Barney, Norma and Pugsley have to fight her, alongside demons their demon friend Courtney. They manage to defeat the demons and Courtney, and Barney makes peace with his family. This was so wholesome! It was extremely queer and healing and realistic - well, except for the paranormal bits maybe. And it was just a good show! 4.5/5.
Tess arrives at her Airbnb late at night, and realizes that is has been double booked. The man who's already inside, Keith, is pretty awkward about the situation, but after failing to contact the owner, he decides to sleep on the couch while Tess takes the bedroom. The two renters hang out for a while, discovering that they have a lot in commun and flirting a little. At night, Tess finds her bedroom door open, but Keith is fast asleep and assures her he didn't touch the door. The next day, Tess goes to her job interview, and is warned that her airbnb is in a very bad neighbourhood; when she goes back to it in the daylight, she realizes all the houses around hers are abandonned and decaying. Once back in the Airbnb, Tess gets locked in the basement while looking for toilet paper, but she finds a hidden door, itself leading to a creepy room with a bed, a camera and bloody handprints on the wall. Keith comes back at that point and frees her from the basement, before going to investigate the room that freaked Tess out. When he doesn't come back, Tess goes to investigate and discovers a deep staircase. Fearing for Keith's life, she goes down the stairs, and after walking in dark corridors for a while she finds Keith, who tells her a monster is after him... just before a giant naked woman kills him by smashing his head against a wall. Two weeks later, the house’s owner, an actor named AJ, is fired over rape allegations. Scrambling for money, he decides to go check on his rental, and is surprised to find traces of a renter there (Tess and Keith's stuff). Investigating for squaters, he goes to the cave, where he finds the hidden door. Curious to see if he can increase the house's value with the underground space, he happily goes down the stairs with a tape measurer. He is soon attacked by the creature, and thrown in a hole with Tess. The creature gives them a baby bottle filled with milk, which he refuses to drink despite Tess urging him to do it. The creature becomes upset and grabs AJ to try and breastfeeding it directly, during which Tess takes the opportunity to escape. A flashback to the 1980s reveal that the house belonged to a serial kidnapper / rapist / killer, who made many babies with his victims, and in turn made babies with the babies. The creature is revealed to be one of his children, trying to mother the people she kidnaps. Tess is helped in her escape by a homeless man, who tells her to run while she can, because the creature will come out at night. Tess walks a long time before finding policemen (her keys are inside the house, and her phone is in the tunnels), and when she does, they don't believe her. Meanwhile, as the "Mother" is distracted by Tess escaping, AJ goes to a room where he finds the old man; he realizes the man is a serial killer when seeing some of his VHS, and when he says he will call the police, the man shots himself. Tess goes back to the house, grabs her car keys just as the Mother comes out, and runs her over. She runs back to the basement to save AJ, who shoots her, thinking she's the Mother, but they both manage to make it outside. The Mother isn't under the car anymore, but they try to run away and get to the homeless man's shelter. The Mother arrives, kills the man and pursues AJ and Tess. AJ tries to sacrify Tess to survive, but is still killed, and Tess kills the Mother before limping away from the scene. I did like this movie, it was entertaining, but as I think back about it... there wasn't much to it. It felt like the writer stitched together different scary scenarios (creepy basements, serial killers, rapist celebrity, incest, scary creatures, doors opening for no reason,... double booked airbnbs) and tried to weave a plot in between that would allow them to use them all. It was scary, I can't deny that, it's the scaries horror movie I've watched in a long time. But if there was an big theme of message to it, I really didn't see it. 4/5.
Favorite movie: The Lost Boys Favorite tv show: Lockwood & Co.
This documentary tells the story of Venke Dørmænen, a woman who wants to learn how to make herself the same traditional Skolt Sámi hat her grandmother wore in some photographs. Through her story, we also learn about how some Sámi territories were split up between Russia, Finland and Norway, which in turn disrupted their way of life and erased their culture. There was also a deliberate will from the Norwegian government to get in the way of the Sámi way of life in the hopes that they would move to another country, because they were deemed inferior. Through Venke's journey to reclaim part of her culture, we meet with several descendant of Sámi who mourn the cultural loss their families went through. This was great! I loved that we had both the historical facts of the separation of Sámi territories and their eugenic origins, as well as the consequences for the descendants of Skolt Sámi who feel alienated from their culture. This was both hard to watch and very touching. 5/5.
In May, also known as the "Fawn month", we witness domesticated reindeer give birth, and the younglings taking their first steps in the arctic snow. This was a simple but very beautiful documentary! The endless snowy forests and groups of reindeer walking around will never get old to me. The actual birthing of the fawn was a bit intense, but I guess that's nature for you! 4/5.
Inger Ellen Baal is a 90 years old Sámi woman and she talks about the hardships of her life, especially about the way the Norwegian government stole her family's reindeer grazing land, thus ending their lifestyle abruptly and without any monetary compensation. Old neighbours and family talk about her, and how their life used to be a few decades ago; dependant on swaping necessities with neighbors and barely knowing what money was. This movie was very emotional and hard to watch, but at the same time very interesting and important. Europeans often focus on how Native Americans have been treated while ignoring their own indigenous people, so it's important documentaries like this are being made. 4.5/5.
In 1916 Sire Marainen, the director’s grandfather’s mother is pregnant. Then she falls ill with goitre and chokes to death. We follow the last moments of her life, the way her baby communicates with her, and the small sensations she focuses on. I had a bit of a hard time with this movie, because the summary promised that the movie would be about her rich last summer, to make us remember Sire's life, and not her death... whereas the whole movie was about her illness, how bad she felt, and ultimately her painful death. So to me it was very much focused on death, which I wasn't really expecting giving the summary. That being said, it was beautiful, I liked the way the director chose to illustrate her illness by showing her & her baby's inner monologues, as well as the time jump into Sámi culture a hundred years ago. 3.5/5.
A forest troll kidnaps a girl, but she manages to escape by filling the bag with rocks while the troll is peeing. When the troll brings rocks to his wife for dinner, she's upset, so they argue, and the troll throws away their iron pot. A jogger later sees the pot and complains about littering. This was cute! I love to see movies made by children, and I love to be able to understand a short movie despite the language barrier (it was in North Sámi without subtitles). 4/5.
A Sámi woman is dancing under the midnight sun on beautiful rock formations near water. I think this looked quite magical, especially the fact that it was filmed at "night", which you have to constantly remind yourself given the brightness of the sky. I live in Southern Finland, where we don't have proper nights in summer, but this (probably filmed in the North) is on another level for sure! The dance and the aesthetic of the video were very relaxing and peaceful, 4/5.
The official summary of this movie is this: "In Sámi mythology, the underground world of Saivo is a source of inspiration and strength in which the spirit Háldi protects all living beings. Director Ann Holmgren’s and composer Mette Henriette’s mysterious journey reflects the unity and power of women’s relationships in Sámi heritage." The movie is a collection of beautiful scenes illustrating water and women in red Sámi robes, and how their reflection on the water can allude to an underworld. This was beautiful but a bit too abstract for me; very short and without dialogue, more than half of it was just close up shots of water. 3.5/5.
Tallulah, a Native American lesbian from Toronto, now lives in New Zealand, but she despairs at the fact that it looks like everybody around her is straight. Her only queer friend, a Māori named Johnny, tries to prove to her that there are many queer people around them, and to convince them to not go back to Toronto. When Tallulah complains that she sees no pride flags or glitter, Johnny explains that it's a very Western and modern way to look queer, and not the only way that exists. Talullah also mentions that there's no word for queer people in her native language, and her and Johnny have a conversation about it, wondering if there's no word for it because it was so normal, and wondering how much influence the church had in erasing queerness in Native American communities. At the end, Tallulah decides to give New Zealand another go, and to be the rainbow in the bay. Short film (10min) watched during the online Skábmagovat Indigenous Film Festival 2023. It was too short but sweet, and raised important questions in a light and kind manner. I loved it, 4.5/5.
50 years ago, the Problem started: ghosts started to appear, causing mayhem because their touch turned out to be deadly. It quickly appeared that kids and teenagers were the only ones able to sense (see, hear of feel) ghosts, and so the British government allowed kids as young as 13 to be trained to eliminate the entities. Lucy Carlyle is a gifted Listener whose mother put in a hunter school for money, and who gets traumatized by the death of her team and the ghost-locking (a kind of coma) of her girlfriend after a negligence by their teacher, which was blamed on her. She runs away to London and applies to every famous ghost hunting agencies, but gets rejected because of her lack of parental authorisation. As a last resort, she knocks on the door of Lockwood & Co., where two teenagers give her some tests to check her powers. After passing the tests successfully, she learns that the teenagers are also the owners of the agency, and they offer to hire her, which she accepts. They burn their client's house during their first case, and their second case is a rich murderer trying to kill them after they get too close to solve his murderous act. Lucy discovers that she's so powerful that she can talk to entities of Type 3, which only one other person has been able to do before; she discovers it because Lockwood & George have a stolen type 3 ghost source in their basement. During another case, they uncover a very powerful ghost in a graveyard, buried with a mysterious mirror. The mirror gets stolen, and they realize that the ghost was of a famous occultist, dealing with ghosts before the Problem started. Ensues a lot of adventures during which they manage to get the mirror back from the underground mafia who stole it, but George has peeked into it and is now obsessed with it, so he tries to look in it with a new found "friend" who's just using him for this purpose. Lucy and Lockwood save him, with Lucy using her type 3 ghost friend to look in the mirror instead. George's "friend" kills herself after accidentally looking in the mirror, and the mirror breaks, freeing the souls that had been locked inside it. A mysterious man talks about the death of Lockwood's parents before trying to shoot him, and he decides to open up to Lucy and George about his past, and open the mysterious door that he always kept lock in their flat... As a kid, I was a huge fan of the Bartimeaus book series by Jonathan Stroud, and this series is from another book series of his, so of course I had to watch it! I really loved it! It had this good children horror vibe, British fantasy, retro vibes because technological progress got interrupted by the problem... I don't know how to explain it, I just really love this universe and its characters! Also I binged the first season while I was sick... yeah. 4.5/5.
Eddie Brock has a successful news report segment, with a reputation to investigate on things that bother powerful people. He also has a fiancée - Anne, herself a successful lawyer - and they live in a fancy San Francisco appartment. His life takes a turn for the worst when he has to interview Carlton Drake, the powerful CEO of the bio-engineering firm Life Foundation, and he asks him about the allegations that Drake is killing human test subjects, backed up by secret information he found on Anne's computer. Eddie is immediately fired from his job, and so is Anne, so she breaks up with him... Six months later, Eddie lives alone in a decrepit appartment and is unable to find any job due to being blacklisted everywhere. In the meantime, the Life Foundation found alien specimens in space and brought them back to Earth, and is investigating on them, using homeless people as guinea pigs to try to merge the aliens, which are symbiotes, with human hosts. A Life Foundation scientist is shocked at the unethical procedures, and tries to contact Brock so he can break the story. He first refuses, arguing that Drake already destroyed his life once, but he ends up agreeing to investigate. The scientist, Dora Skirth, sneaks Eddie in her lab, where he witnesses some people being cages. One of them is Maria, someone from Eddie's neighbourhood that he regularly talked with, so he tries to get her out. Unfortunately, she attacks him and then dies; but after the attack, Eddie suddenly has super strengh and reflexes, so he manages to escape, unsure of what happened. In the following days he feels very sick and hungry, and this culminates in him going to see Anne while she's having lunch in a fancy restaurant with her new boyfriend Dan; he steals food from people's plates, spits them out complaining they're dead animals, before finally taking a bath in the live lobster tank and starting to munch on one of said lobsters. Meanwhile in the Life Foundation, Dora Skirth is found out for having helped Eddie, so Drake kills her with the last remaining symbiote, before sending his mercenaries to get Eddie. Dan examines Eddie and finds out he has some kind of parasite. Eddie has to run away from Drake's mercenaries, and as he does so, he starts to realize that the voice he started to hear in his mind is real, as Venom protects him from danger. Eddie and Venom start to cooperate, Venom even healing Eddie when he gets hurt, and together they manage to give proof to Eddie's old job about Drake's human trials. Anne sees Venom's full form after he fights a SWAT squad, and she freaks out, but Eddie tries to reassure her (in human form) and she decides to take him back to the hospital. Upset at the news that Venom is slowly killing him, Eddie agrees to use the high pitches sound of the MRI (one of Venom's weaknesses) to separate them, but he is soon after kidnapped by Drake's men. Drake interrogates him, and it is revealed that Drake also recently acquired a symbiote, Riot, who had originally escaped countainement but made its way back to Drake, intending to use him & his rockets to go fetch the rest of his race and invade the earth. As Eddie is about to be executed in the woods, Venom, this time hosted by Anne, saves him. Eddie and Venom then make out, clearly because that's the only possible way for Venom to go back in Eddie's body, and not at all for gay reasons, not at all. Anyway, this is also followed by the completely heterosexual conversation where Venom decides to betray his entire species because he likes Eddie too much for his planet to be destroyed. Moving on. Riot and Venom fight, with Riot clearly having the advantage because he's the leader of the symbiotes, and has much more weapons than Venom, but as the rocket starts launching with Riot & Drake inside, Venom and Eddie manage to sabotage it, and it explodes in mid-air. Venom, also affected by the fire of the explosion (his other weakness), says goodbye to Eddie, but when Eddie is later talking with Anne and she asks him if he's sad to have lost Venom, we hear that he's still inside Eddie. The post credit scene shows Eddie going to interview a serial killer, who promises there'll be carnage when he goes out... Unironically my favorite movie, made me fall in love with Venom and start a comic reading spree. Venom is my first monster husbando and he is so dear to me you don't understand. Also Tom Hardy ultimate queer trash boy, amazing. 5/5.
Alice and Jack are a couple living in what seems to be the 50s-60s. Alice is a dedicated housewife, cleaning and cooking while her husband is at work, and they seem to have a perfect life, as well as... lots of sex. The town they live in is Victory, in California; it's a company town in the middle of the desert, where all the men work on some secret project, and the wives are discouraged from ever leaving the town. Alice's friend Margaret has become an outcast after taking her son into the desert, resulting in his apparent death, although she claims Victory took him from her as punishment. At a party hosted by Victory's enigmatic founder Frank, Margaret claims that he is lying about everything, and she is soon taken away by her husband. One day, Alice sees a plane crash in the desert, and she decides to go investigate, but ends up in a front of a strange building that gives her hallucinations when she touches it. In the following days, she experiences increasingly strange occurrences (eggs being empty, walls closing in on her, etc). Margaret calls her to tell her that they are the same now, but Alice doesn't want to listen to her, and later sees her friend commit suicide. Jack and the local doctor both tell Alice that Margaret is completely safe and didn't try to commit suicide, although Alice finds documents about how Margaret was a threat to the safety of Victory. Alice and Jack invite friends, as well as Frank and his wife, to dinner. In private, Frank confirms Alice's suspicions and says he hopes she continues to challenge him. Spurred by his confession, she attempts to expose him over dinner, but Frank gaslights her, making her seem delusional to the other guests. Afterwards, Alice begs Jack to leave Victory, and he says he's scared that will break them appart, but finally agrees... except that was just a trick to have her kidnapped by people in red jumpsuits. Alice undergoes electroshock therapy, and that gives her visions of her working as a nurse in the present day and having a quite bad relationship with an unemployed Jack, who regularly listens to Frank's podcasts. Alice goes back to her life in Victory, although her memories are a bit fuzzy. She then has a seizure and remembers her real life, thus realizing that this is a simulation that Jack forced her in. Jack admits it, and explains that every man is responsible for their wives, but that his is a much better life than the overworked one she lived before. He also explains that when he goes to work every morning, he leaves Victory to go to work IPL to pay for this. Jack begs for forgiveness while Alice accuses him of stealing her life and freedom of choice, and when he starts clinging to her so much that she can hardly breathe, she ends up killing him with a blow to the head - which also kills him IPL. Alice's friend arrives and explains that she is aware this isn't the real world, but she chose it because her children are still alive here. Alice flees in Jack's car, and is chased by many men who know that she will destroy their lives if she manages to escape, but she does manage to reach it and starts to gasp for air as she re-emerges in the real world. I liked this movie and really didn't see where it was going. I thought the men were working on something dangerous which was giving their wives vision, not that they had abducted and brainwashed them like some dumb incels, but here we are. I liked the twist though, I thought it was well done, and was quite realistic. 4.5/5.
This prequel to X taking place in 1918 follows a young Pearl, who lives with her authoritarian mother on their Texan farm. Her husband, Howard, went to serve in World War I, and her father is paralyzed. Pearl is fascinated by the movies playing at her local cinema and wishes to become a dancer to escape her farmer's life, and she expresses her frustration with her boring life by killing farm animals and physically abusing her defenseless father. Pearl escapes when she can: going to watch a movie, flirting with the projectionist, drinking her father's morphine and... masturbating with a scarecrow when sent on an errand to town; but her mother notices the few cents missing from their money and punishes her harshly. Pearl's sister in law, Mitsy, tells her about a dance audition and they decide to go together. In the meantime, Pearl starts to have an affair with the projectionist, who shows her an illegal pornographic movie, and she complains to him about her parents, saying she wishes they would die. During a new argument with her mother about going to the movies, Pearl shoves her mother in the kitchen fire, before fleeing to have sex with the projectionist. In the morning, the man drives her back home and starts to get scared by Pearl, because he realizes that she's lying about some things and that a few things don't seem right in her home. When he attempts to leave, Pearl gets into a rage and stabs him with her pitchfork. She then dresses in a beautiful red dress which belonged to her mother, before smothering her father to death. After this, she goes to the dance audition where she gives her all, but is refused by talent scouts, who say they are looking for an all-American girl, aka someone who's blonde, whereas Pearl has brown hair. Mitsy goes back home with Pearl and gets her to open up about what's wrong, so Pearl tells her about the murders, about cheating on Mitsy's brother, about being relieved to have miscaried, and being resentful towards Howard for leaving her on the farm. Mitsy is stunned and now fearful for her life, especially as Pearl gets her to confess that she won the dance audition, and she tries to run away but Pearl kills her with an axe. Pearl gets rid of some of the bodies by feeding them to a local alligator, but places her mother and father around the table as if they were a happy family, and serves them rotten food. The next day, Howard comes back from the war and is horrified at the scene, but Pearl welcomes him home and smiles in a very forced and painful looking way. Well this sure was something! I liked to see the many references to X, and I liked the weird character of Pearl. She was endearing despite it all. I think my favorite part is the end, because you'd think her husband arriving at this scene would turn very badly, but we know from X that Howard ended up accepting Pearl and her... urges. On top of that, in X Pearl says "You know I never liked blondes" (or something), which is a reference to Mitsy, meaning Howard knows his wife killed his sister, and apparently made his peace with it. Now the real question is - was this a "good for her" movie? 4.5/5.
In 1979, a group of young people planning to film a pornographic movie arrive to a Texan farm. An old couple lives there, and the group goes to the barn that they've rented for the summer. The movie's plot is about a man fucking the farmer's daughter, and they get to filming, with Jackson Hole fucking first Bobby-Lynne Parker and then Maxine Minx. The director is RJ, a beginner in his craft who wants to make the movie look quite serious, and is inspired by the French new wave. RJ's girlfriend, Lorraine, is at first quite grossed out by the porn, but after watching it all day and talking with the actors, she decides to star in the movie as well. RJ refuses, but the producer Wayne Gilroy tells him he should give her freedom if he wants to keep her, and they end up shooting the scene. The old couple living in the farm, Pearl and Howard, are quite strange - and when Pearl invites Maxine for a lemonade, she expresses her jealousy over her youth before trying to flirt with her. Maxine leaves, and when Pearl sees her fucking Jackson during the filming, she gets turned on and asks her husband to have sex with her, but he refuses on account of his weak heart. After RJ filmed the scene with Lorraine and Jackson, he is disgusted and wants to leave the crew at night, but is stopped by Pearl, who tries to seduce him, and... stabs him when he rejects her. Lorraine and Wayne go look for RJ, and Pearl kills Wayne with a pitchfork while Howard locks Lorraine in their basement, where she finds the corpse of a male sex slave. Howard then shoots Jackson dead, and Pearl feeds Bobby-Lynne to the nearby alligator. Pearl also gets into bed with Maxine while naked and pets her, which Maxine is horrified at when she wakes up, and feels violated. Pearl and Howard end up having sex while Maxine is hiding under their bed, and she manages to sneak out and get to the basement where Lorraine is still locked. Lorraine accuses Maxine to be responsible for what happened and flees from the front door despite Maxine's warning, and immediately gets shot by Howard. As Howard drags her inside the house once more to blame the murder as self defense against robbers, Lorraine's body moves and gives him a heart attack. Pearl tries to shoot Maxine, but fails, and the recoil sends her flying and she breaks her hip. Pearl begs Maxine for help, but Maxine drives over her with a truck before driving away. A fundamentalist Christian preacher is talking on the television, and it's revealed that he's Maxine's father. The next day, the police arrives to discover the massacre. I've watched so many good horror movies lately that I can't say this was one of my absolute top, and because everybody put in their top movies of the year, it felt a bit underwhelming. I still liked it - I like a good slasher, and I liked the themes of ageism and sexuality. The actors were good, and I'm curious to see the last movie of the series, which will be focused on the only survivor, Maxine. 4.5/5.
LuLaRoe is an MLM company started by DeAnne Brady and Mark Stidham which sold leggings and other brightly-patterned clothes to millions of suburban mothers. It started as DeAnne selling some maxi skirts in her backyard, and then grew exponentially until they had tens of thousands of white mums acting as their sellers. Then the garnment quality went bad, people realized that there was no return policy, and that they couldn't get refunds for their stocks when they wanted to quit. Sellers who had made fortunes out of LuLaRoe went bankrup trying to leave its grip. The documentary also explores the religious side of LuLaRoe, as its founders are Mormons, and how it used a fake feminist message to reinforce traditional gender roles. This was rough to watch, especially as we watched it with Riikka following one of her friends potentially getting into a health-related MLM scheme. The fact that this business still exists is harrowing... We did get a clear "capitalism is not the problem, people abusing the system like this are the problem!" vibe from this though I will say, and it was a very American-style documentary made to shock, but well... 3.5/5.
I've already reviewed this movie here. It was an amazing movie to rewatch, as everything was hinted early on and you could just follow it fall into place! 5/5
Camille and Gabriel are together, but Emily witnesses Camille cheating with a Greek artist. Alfie ghosts Emily because he realizes she's not as involved in their relationship as he is, and that shakes Emily in making more efforts for their relationship. Meanwhile, Emily and Gabriel keep having cute moments and people mistake them for a couple on a regular basis. Emily wants to quit Savoir and join Sylvie's new company Greateau with everybody else, but she doesn't want to leave her American boss all alone so she continues to work for both companies until her bosses realize, which makes Sylvie fire her. Her American boss announces that they're giving up on the French branch, so Emily takes the opportunity to quit and join Grateau. Because of a non-compete, Sylvie can't poach all of Savoir's clients, so she's left with only Pierre Cadault... who switches to a large company named JVMA. Mindy gets a gig at a famous club, but without her boyfriend Benoit and their band, and she reconnects with her childhood crush, Nicholas, who happens to work at JVMA. Benoit gets jealous of Nicholas and breaks up with Mindy, who ends up dating Nicholas. JVMA plans to fire Pierre Cadault from his own brand, but Emily and Grateau create a plan so JVMA is humiliated, following which Nicholas starts to get very rude to Emily, which shocks Mindy. Benoit comes back to announce to Mindy that the song he wrote for her has been selected to go to Eurovision. Gabriel told Emily that he and Camille were having problems, but everything seems to be settled as he decides to propose to her and she accepts. During their engagement party, Gabriel learns that he might get a Michelin Star and decides to ask Camille to marry him right away! Camille accepts, but when it's her turn to say "I do", she tells him that they can't get married because she knows he's still in love with Emily. The wedding is cancelled, Alfie and Camille leave, and Gabriel and Emily admit their feelings to each other... before Gabriel reveals that Camille is pregnant. Emily is really getting on my nerves with the way she is constantly talking about work (at parties, while her boyfriend is worrying about their relationship, etc), and trying to constantly please others to her own detriment (eg. only putting efforts in her relationship with Alfie after he gets hurt, doing everybody's job for them, etc). Also the fact that whenever there's a problem, you know Emily will find a perfect magical solution in about 2min tops, which lowers the stakes of whatever is happening. I love the drama but I'm tired of Emily, 2.5/5.
Michael and Sam move to their grandfather's place in Santa Clara, California, with their mother after her divorce. Michael gets a crush on a woman named Star but she leaves with a group of goths, who dare him to race them with their motorbike until they almost make him fall off a cliff. They laugh it off and invite Michael in their lair, an old underground hotel, where they share food with him and bully him by wrapping his perception so he thinks he's eating maggots or worms. Meanwhile, Sam goes to a comic shop where he meets the Frog brothers, who advise him to read comics about vampires and tell him the town's infested by the creatures. The next day, Michael has changed: he wears sunglasses indoors, gained an earing and a rude attitude. Sam realizes that Michael's reflection in the mirror is faded and he must be a vampire, so he baricades himself in his room, but Michael convinces him that he won't hurt him. Sam contacts the Frog brothers and they decide to go kill the vampires in their lair during the day, but only manage to kill one before the others attack them. They think that if they kill the head vampire, the others will turn back to human, but they're not sure who that is - they believe it's the man their mother is dating for a while, but rule it out after some tests. The vampires come attack their house at night, but they're ready with holy water and spikes, and manage to kill the whole gang... except Michael and Star are still vampires. Finally, the mum shows up with her date, and he reveals that he is the head vampire, before being killed by the grandfather, who pesters about the number of vampires in the town. Michael and Star are human again. I've literally been waiting to watch this movie for 15 years, since I first read Lost Souls by Billy Martin (formerly Poppy Z. Brite) which contained some references to this movie, but yesterday I read a steddie fic with references to it as well and I knew it was time to finally watch it! It was fun, it was queer(-coded), it was very goth and I loved it! A great movie to start the year, 4.5/5.