Agatha All Along

How the hell am I supposed to say no to Kathryn and Aubrey? I have an iron will, but even iron melts under enough heat.

Oooooh boy! Wow how in the world do I sum this up and all my myriad thoughts? Well, disclaimer up front I did not rewatch Wandavision, I did not read up on the finale of Wandavision, so we're walking into this sorta blind. We kinda kick off in the same fashion where Agatha is now Agnes, a police detective in the town of Westview and by the by I would gladly watch several seasons of that show within a show, before the facade is ripped away and Agatha is on a quest to get her groove back along with a ragtag coven of witches. I...barely know where to start. Deep slow breaths, maintain composure. You didn't have to sell me on this show beyond Kathryn and if you thought I was crushing before this, it is getting plain out of hand at this point! Whatever service or favor I did to get this show and the things therein, clearly I need to double down on my next sacrifice or favor because this could not have hit more of my buttons coincidentally. I do not need to tell you how good of an acting job she does, Agatha is kind of my role model in this and firmly exemplifies why I love villains. Total sassy smartass, out for herself, opportunistic, just flawless qualities. Dare I say, I'm smitten. Joe Locke is our young nàive witch in training William, sort of taken under Agatha's wing as he seeks The Witch's Road, a gauntlet task that offers any wish to the victor. He has a lot of charm and likability, a very good secondary lead that comes to a bigger role in the end. Then we have our coven comprising of four witches, each with a specific field of magic they are proficient in but have more character than just a role. Sasheer Zatama as Jennifer, a potions heavy witch with a negatively charged past with Agatha, a hard sell on the Road trip but comes in handy a good few times. Then we have Patti LuPone as Lilia, possesing a unique gift of divination but often remembers things the wrong way around, I really liked her backstory and the kindness but realism of her place in the world was a nice touch. Of course we need some muscle in a crew so enter Ali Ahn as Alice, bit more hardheaded and has a rough past with a proclivity for protection spells because of it, I almost felt there was a romance thing between her and William but then I remembered that boy be just 16 and I shot that down quick, I'm a sucker for a strong lady too. And oho Aubrey Plaza madwoman that she is, basically the antagonistic wild card thrown in the mix as Rio, that none of the others trust but have to rely on her earth magic, it's easily the most serious part I've ever seen her in and she does pretty solid work showing she can do dramatic parts but chooses not to. Respect. Actually now that I think about it, the series has a pretty good way of unfolding with 9 episodes (ooh scandalous breaking the rule of 8) each ranging from 30 to 45 minutes, and while the cliffhangers save for one aren't earth shattering it doesn't dawdle. We get Agatha back, she starts up her makeshift coven, and the vast majority is them travelling the winding road with challenges and personalities clashing. They really do not waste a minute of your time and don't even truly have to balance several plots and focuses more on the characters and their situations. That's grand! And the overall production and more importantly the style herein is what made me love it as much as I did, fully embellishing the witch imagery from contesting stereotypes to little nods in the background of witchy cinema from the past made it highly enjoyable to watch. There's even some artsy gorgeous shots at periods, with the love and care present in all aspects of the production. It engrossed me and how many times can I say that about Marvel? The humor, the situations, the characters, the story and themes gave me so much to enjoy. It's funny how I barely ever go out of my way to watch the MCU but all the stuff I do pick hasn't failed me yet from Doctor Strange, to She-Hulk, to Iron Man 1, to Agatha, I don't miss probably because I know my tastes. Very very happy to have watched this and though I doubt there will be a seaon two, this was a nice remedy for me in the post Halloween blues. I give it 3.5 stars, 8/10! And oh yes it is time again to visit Gotham, happy days!

WandaVision

Well it wouldn't be Marvel time without f***ing homework.

It can't ever just be watch a movie can it? To hell and be damned with your interconnected universe! Now I will admit it had me for the first 3 episodes, wowing me with the attention to detail of television shows of the 50s, keeping me guessing exactly what the hell was occuring, building intrigue despite me knowing a fair bit because social media is a blight upon the planet. And then episode 4 happened, and I was disinterested ever since. So how does one talk about a show that has a show within the show? Besides ranting for half an hour how the whole intrigue, pulling factor, and reason anybody even watched it was because of that bizzare format. Now granted it's a intriguing setup, with two characters who unequivocally died suddenly finding themselves in a sitcom that continually evolves in style from decade to decade, as neither are entirely sure what is occuring while breaks in reality happen more and more leading to a final confrontation with a surprising foe. I thoroughly enjoyed the attention to detail, the writing, and the mystery of this town they inhabit until like I said the 4th episode when it just decides to blow it's load instead of crafting a more complex and interesting puzzle box for the audience to work with for the majority of the series. It almost shrieks of lazy writing, we could have kept the charade going but instead we're gonna explain damn near everything roughly halfway through and focus on characters and situations you don't care about when the focus should be primarily on Wanda and Vision. God. Damn. I couldn't have given a f*** less about the stuff happening outside of the town. It had one brief neat little scene showing the restoration of the universe from the snap from a normal character's perspective, when we didn't hardly see anything like that in Endgame. If I was writing this series, I would hold off on the explanation until damn near the end. Scrap the 8th episode it's mostly useless padding anyway, thusly making the series eight total episodes instead of nine, and drop two bombs by the 7th episode, the villain reveal and the town reveal. It takes too much attention off our main characters who while I don't hate the writing for by any means, they do still act like the characters we have seen movie after movie, but what was the end goal of this show? The endgame, if you will. I found nothing truly happened to affect the character and future of Wanda or Vision, and I know it's been about 2 years since I've watched the Marvel movies so I was having rather a hard time figuring out the time scale of everything that happened. Who's on first, Wanda's on second, I Don't Know is on third, is this after Endgame? Is it after Hulk saves the universe? Why is Wanda still in crazy grief mode if that is the case? I'm so confused. I just feel such a monumental disconnect here and all down to one single element. People are not watching or even discussing the show, they are watching and discussing the sitcom within the show. You follow me? They're getting kicks off seeing sitcom variants from different decades, they're gushing about the classic costumes for Vision and the Scarlet Witch, but they're not actually talking about what transpires throughout the series. And I think that's just because nothing actually happens. It's spectacle television with the lichpin being previous famous examples of television, oh ha ha don't you remember The Dick Van Dyke Show and Malcolm In The Middle, oh wow they have a whole episode where they break the fourth wall like The Office, isn't this such a brilliantly written show, despite it being so predictable and old hat that I was dragging my way to the finale because I have seen this shit time and time again. They wrote and marketed this show based around that instead of a personal story. They grabbed people's attention with the 1950s TV setting and used that alone to gain traction and generate audience numbers when they could have just made a show about Wanda and her story. But I do have good things to say, the comedic writing worked somewhat but I still enjoyed it. The set design and aesthetic is spot on and must be commended. Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bettany honestly have better chemisty presented here than in the movies, being very cute and charming but still can hold down the dramatic parts to the end. The only reason I would have ever watched this show outside of a review is Kathryn Hahn who my stars and days, is the best part of the show. I...cannot...get over this woman. Every fashion was smashing on her, she was so funny, she was a delight every second she was on screen, oh my God yes give me more! Ohh, I haven't evil laughed in sheer joy like that in a long time. 12/10! Still however felt the writing for the villain was weak in terms of motivation, and I'm just stating this now. Ever since that Doctor Strange trailer dropped everyone. Everyone. Could not stop saying oh Wanda's gonna be a villain, she seems like she's turning heel. Motherf***er have you forgot about this show? She is the villain as far as I'm concerned in this, she does some messed up stuff and I know there is palpable and important messages in this show that, reality must be faced, you cannot live and hide in dreams and not accept the truth, that pain and loss must be accepted as much as happiness and love in life, but I feel it's going to be unnoticed. Hell people don't even talk about this show nowadays unless connecting it to Doctor Strange. I mean is this all that show was meant to be? Just connective but ultimately superflous tissue for a movie that isn't out yet? Will people really talk about this show at all in even 3 years time? I don't think so. It just seems like such a waste. Jesus, I know I'm not a Marvel fan by any stretch but I know they can do good stories and make captivating characters here and there. It just wasn't worth the time. 1.5 stars, 4.5/10, next show has to be better right?

Hotel Transylvania 4

I got so much to say about this, it's probably gonna get loud so strap in.

For those who have been around since the old eons if you ever wondered what in the holy high hell happened to my Hotel Transylvania 3 review, well I wrote it and posted it, the damn website only got the first half of what I wrote opening day, and months after the fact I had to slapdash the rest of the review from what I remembered. So I swear to God this review better come out in full. I'm seriously at a loss for words here. I cannot believe any of this. So not only was this film pulled from theaters, not only was it sold to Amazon, but they had the sheer balls to release it in JANUARY. Are you.....are you taking the piss?? Now, I will not give this movie good grief that production started in late 2019, I will not give the animation good grief that it had to be completed virtually in 2020, I will not give good grief for even recasting Adam Sandler and Kevin James in their respective roles. I will however say are you f***ing kidding me? This is the last Hotel Transylvania movie folks. That's it! Ablblbl, that's all folks! What?? This is how you end it? You know that movie franchise that nobody had any expectations for whatsoever and yet turned out to be a pretty good movie, and steadily became a Halloween tradition for a new generation every so years, and had mostly hit sequels? It's gone. No satisfying final ending, no good story, nothing. I really don't want to talk about it. Maybe it's just my senile old ass or these movies are not that memorable, but I was having a very difficult time extrapolating facts from the previous two movies. Is the little ginger kid of Johnny and Mavis a vampire or not? I thought he was but then he got hypnotized. I couldn't remember anything about Drac's new lady friend or what her relationship was with Van Helsing until they had to tell me near the end of the movie. Granted it's been awhile since I watched the second and third movies but it really shouldn't be that big a hurdle to jump in the first place. Alright alright, I gotta back up and relay plot. So the story, God help me, Jesus help me, everybody else help me, the story goes Drac is about to retire and place the hotel in the hands of Johnny and Mavis, cool I like that, we're progressing the story and giving meaningful character progression to people we have followed for 3 movies up to this point. But oh no, Johnny is still a f*** up and Drac doesn't like that though he allowed him to marry his daughter and has been a competent loving father and has been just a lovable fool undoubtedly part of this makeshift family of monsters, so you think after the events of the first movie where Drac lied to his daughter unnecessarily to keep her safe that he wouldn't tell a lie or fib or even slight exaggeration for the rest of his days, but nope. He says Johnny can't share holding the hotel with Mavis because he isn't a monster. Even though his daughter is a monster and joint ownership could still be primarily in her name, but he lies anyway. Great. So Johnny asks kooky old Van Helsing if he has any doohickey that can make him a monster, wonder upon wonders there is, and Johnny is turned into a dragon basically. Despite the fact that Mavis told him he was perfect just the way he is and shouldn't change no matter what, that tired old kids movie message shite. And hijinks ensue resulting in Drac and all his monster pals to become human, oh no it's a wacky time how are they gonna get outta this one? I'm glad you asked slowly drowning will to live, well you see there's a big crystal that powers the transmorpher thing and it breaks but not to fear because they flat out explain there's a crystal finder locator literally built into the contraption itself for no other reason than to expedite the plot, leading Drac and Johnny to travel to South America to find a new kyber crystal. Now. When I heard the premise of this movie, with Dracula becoming human and Johnny becoming a monster I thought it was an okay and could even be a fun premise, they could play around with the jokes for a good chunk of the film and it would be a good plot device for the characters on opposite sides of the board to better understand each other thus becoming more thoughtful and caring individuals in their family unit. Pffffft but why have that story when we can go for the tried and true buddy road trip movie, sprinkled with tired boring family "drama" with the gold standard of hack writing tropes, the liar revealed!! Isn't that great? Isn't that fun, creative, entertaining writing? I'll give you two guesses, and both answers are get f***ed. Ohhhh, ohhhh my soul hurts. It hurts man. I did not walk into this looking to trash a movie from a series I liked! I didn't have skyrocketing expectations, but I thought it would be fun. It's so old hat, and completely shits the bed with the writing. The animation is high energy and still really good, the humor is zany and I mean a loooooot of Looney Tunes inspiration went into this but you know what I like that, the voice cast still strong as ever. But if your story sucks, the movie cannot be salvaged. And I'm frick fraking flabbergasted that this is the end! No more Hotel Transylvania for you! So have fun with that shithead! I'm done, goodbye, good luck, and good riddance. 1.5 stars, 3/10.

Spider-Man Into The Spiderverse

Yeah after all the hype and seeing the new Miles Morales game I figured this was the first stop to better understand it all.

I mean, for a character that hasn't even been around for a decade and yet even for a non-Marvel fan to know how beloved such a character is like Miles Morales is kind of rare. But how was the movie? Pretty good. I still say Isle Of Dogs should have won at the Oscars, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't like this movie. It's just such a fresh take on the superhero genre and if anything fun and light to where people of all ages can enjoy it. I have to say it already got me just by bringing up so much of the Sam Raimi movies which I watched as a kid and was my first exposure to the character, and after that I was rolling with everything. So our story starts with Miles as he goes about his daily life before the ususal radioactive spider, yadda yadda, you know this but things get crazy and things get nuts, when a cross dimensional experiment occurs and pulls 5 parallel universe spider people into Miles' world and they have to go save the day and get everyone not so far from home. Fun plot, but still has it's moments. It's a lot for Miles sometimes and the movie doesn't shrug off the emotional bits for any of the characters, I mean after all that was kind of the main thing about Spider-Man, a superhero with a relatable life and dilemmas, to which this movie sticks with. I'm not entirely sure how they picked the incarnations of the various web slinging crimefighters but I like it. We got Spider Gwen which is cool, easily my favorite of the bunch the all black trenchcoat wearing Spider Noir, friggin' anime girl with mech suit included (Nice!), and the pig. I don't think I need to say much more about the pig. We also get a good medley of villains, with Kingpin who I know zero about and Doc Ock who I know a bit about and is voiced by complete wife material Kathryn Hahn. Oh my. There's a lot to talk about in this movie so I'll keep it brief but there's at least 2 more points I want to make. I dreaded the animation style, the first time I ever experienced this dropped frame rate style was in Tron Uprising, because of course it was, and...I hated it. I could not for the life of me get over it. It looked so stilted, unnatural, and a touch lazy if I was being unusually cruel. Yet surprisingly, I barely even noticed it here it looks so fluid and has that rich comic book look to it, text boxes and all so I am honest to God thrilled I didn't hate it and maybe it will grow on me in other media. The soundtrack while very modern and almost entirely unknown to me still worked, though you can bet your ass when Biggie Smalls and the f***ing St. Elmo's Fire theme started playing I was jammin' like nobody's business. And yeah, we have to talk about Stan. Turns out I was wrong about the Teen Titans Go movie and this was the last one he had, and holy hell even to a person like me it still cut a bit. Just because I'm not exactly the biggest fan of Marvel or the MCU doesn't mean that I don't like Stan Lee, I have too much respect and admiration for the man to do such a thing. He always said that anyone could wear the suit, and the message at the end that anyone can be a superhero is incredibly true even if you're not inspired by the stories superheroes have. One of my favorite reviewers, like ever, said that superheroes are the modern day knight errants. They go out and do good deeds, help people, and right wrongs. And I will fully say there is not enough stories out there about the positive impact of superheroes, it's either about heroes punching one another or some ultra super mega earth shattering event, and that just isn't the right thing to focus on. This movie did it right though. And really and truly, it has my deepest respect for that. 4 stars, 8/10, I'll see you tomorrow.

Hotel Transylvania 3

Happy Friday The 13th, and what a better day to begin celebrating the coming of Halloween.

You know, if they said there would be no Hotel Transylvania 4....I would be glad. By no means is this movie bad, it's a decent ending(?) to a good series. So a bit of time has passed since last we were at the hotel, and Mavis has set up a holiday cruise for Drac and family to unwind and relax a bit while Dracula has formed an attachment to the ship captain, who is of course a descendent of Van Helsing. I think the filmmakers knew hey, we've had 2 movies with nary a drop of conflict we need to actually do something this time around. And I do think they did a good job with it, since there's actually plot and conflict going on. And you know what I noticed? Now I have to be clear, I know every character has their own design, that is to be expected but in the case of Ericka Van Helsing there was something off about her and I figired it out. She looks like a Dr. Seuss character, with her off set oval shaped eyes, exaggerated chin line, the hair, it all screams Dr. Seuss drawing to me. That's not a bad thing by any means but you look at Johnny and his family in the last movie and they look pretty standard. I found that really interesting and the fact that she is voiced by Kathryn Hahn just makes her a bit better though oddly she doesn't get all zany on us. I think it was just fun to see all these classic monsters in such a fresh new environment, you know outside the castle and the woods, and they take advantage of it which gives more variety and sort of development for all the characters. It's a entertaining fun movie, perfect for adults with or without kids, I mean honestly this series has kind of done remarkably well given all the circumstances and audiences do genuinely like these movies. Not to say the first one had no appeal whatsoever and it was a miracle it was a hit, but this could be a very decent end to a loved, well done, and very enjoyable series. So of course I urge people to see it, definite two thumbs up, perfect for a weekend with the family or small ones. And of course this is a good preamble to the spooky goodness of the future, which I am of course excited for. Until next time monster lovers.