Steins; Gate 0
Obviously the successor from S;G, so there isn't too much to say about the plot. It follows an alternative world line in which Okabe fails to rescue someone, and leads to the events of the very last S;G episode and makes it happen.
I felt you need to pay way less attention than in S;G, and roughly only the last quarter is like the second half from S;G. Those who have watched will understand.
Rating: 10/10, still Steins;Gate
I rec watching S;G first, obviously.
I stopped after looking at it for 5 mins. WTF is this.
The animation literally looks like it was done with the Source Film Maker. So badly animated, i couldn't take it.
A good documentary, albeit I think somewhat dull at the beginning, about how trans are displayed in the media, how that is flawed and dangerous, how it affects how people treat trans persons IRL and expectations. And once you became aware of some things...some portrayals are just gross in retro perspective.
Since a lot of scenes of different movies and shows are shown, this also can work as an entryway to find other LGBTQ movies to watch.
This can be...emotionally hard to watch. Thus, the passage below is in a spoiler about the experience of a trans woman.
I had to be OK with my mom saying "I will never call you Jen because Jen murdered my son."
I had to...I had to be okay with that in order to survive myself, you know? In order to deal with not being able to see my grandma before she died because I could only come home if I dressed as a boy.
I had to deal with the fact that one of my best friends, who, like, I stood up at his wedding, won't let me meet his children.
I have to deal with these things. I have to live with those things.
-- Jen Richards, transwoman and actress.
Statements like these, which are hard to read, and many more in the documentary - They all highlight how our trans need all our support and assistance and tolerance they can get. They are still experiencing injustice daily.
Rating: 8/10
I was somewhat shocked when I started to turn this in and saw the netflix logo - I disliked many of their original productions. Luckily, this wasn't one of them (plus just the licensing got bought it seems)!
Anyway, this is an anime about scammers doing genius jobs, and the anime is divided into multi-episodes cases, that are mostly disconnected with each other. You can think Detective Conan/Case Closed or Black Lagoon.
I think it gets quite a lot of things right: The animation of scenes or talks aren't too long nor too short, the cases in themselves are pretty exciting, just like the animes above, and you really wonder how they are going to pull it off - especially when things don't go their way!
While it is M-rated, it is not really bloody much, but does feature adult themes like drug trafficking.
Fun fact: Given some comments of him, it seems that Laurent is sexually playful or indeed bisexual.
Be like: Catch me if you can (Live-action), Dr. Stone (planning in advance of actions), Ocean's insert-number (live-action, not watched, but I should have gotten the idea about it), Detective Conan/Case Closed (from the opposing side, so maybe
Rating: 10/10
Super-skilled gamer and gambling guy winning matches.
I think the promise has some merit, and there are some moments where that dude just has smirk-faces and goes off - it would be great if this anime would play to his strength as an overly confident guy in a drama, such as in Dr. Stone. Here is the kicker: It isn't playing to this strength.
It also just comes up with totally new concepts at times, and the logic used in the game of around episode 6 just went to absurd stupid. It really got me thinking: We are supposed to believe this? For realsies!?
The main character is a pervert, and we see this overly annoyingly drawn faces and hear loud voices way too often. Not to mention, this anime is cringy at times; It starts with perversion and general ecchi stuff, which would be better left without, but the worst is not only that incest is alluded, but also that the main character's 11 (!) yo sister is alluded to partake in such acts with her brother, or is shown naked. What the firetruck, you serious? (this goes to the creators of this anime/manga). This happens multiple times basically, and I wanted to vomit each single time.
So yeah, it could have much more potential, and play either like Dr. Stone or maybe Death Note or Death Parade, but the biggest drama in this anime is it didn't chose to. instead of being a possible standout like the former mentioned, it just falls into the kind-of-average ecchi anime with not too much going for it. It doesn't help the main character is a full time jerk.
The animation is in itself fine, but I dislike the overly used bloom effects which are just blinding. It isn't as bad as K, though.
Rating: 5/10, maybe a tad bit less even - If it would have omitted and included some things differently, it could have easily been an 8 or higher.
Watchable for many but not all of us, but you will be ashamed while watching this at times, and I did watch it alone even.
The Earth is dying, and technology a luxury. People live as farmers for the most part to produce food for mankind.
In these times, the protagonist, a former NASA pilot, gets by accident into a progressive NASA program with the goal of finding a replacement planet for humankind.
Pretty slight spoilers (not much more than you likely know about the movie beforehand anyways):
A wormhole was discovered in the solar system, which alien forces have laid off and sending signals to the Earth. In the search of a new home for humanity, the team passes through and is going to investigate planets which scouts did discover before.
In-depth spoilers, better read only post-watching:
The first planet to find was pretty weird, I think. Because landing on there makes the time ratio 1:7, but this doesn't seem to count for the ship in the orbit of it? When you are so close to a nuclear star, it seems pretty unbelievable for me that that tiny distance difference would bear such huge consequences. Additionally, it looks like for each hour on the planet not only 7 years pass on Earth, but also for the ship in the orbit - Which doesn't make sense, especially considering it is near a nuclear star. This is more of a scientific note, it does not make watching the movie worse in any term.
I also failed to understand how the robot did fall through to Earth and how that did happen as well as him being "picked up by scouts", where even?
The ending is pretty creative, in any case, independent on how you think about it personally.
I think one among the best movies I have ever watched.
Rating: 10/10
This was my absolutely first watch of it.
I am very impressed. I was over and over with this movie.
I think it pictures what should be important to us. Not intelligence, being smart or what society thinks of us. But rather...being content with our life ourselves.
People mock Forrest all the time as stupid. I don't even think he is. I think he would somehow fit the description of an autistic person. In fact, he can indeed do very many things better than most people - despite failing at what seems to be basic and obvious to people. He just does what people say, and is stubborn and doesn't stop - and by this, ironically, is superior to these people that mock him in such aspects.
We get down. We compare ourselves to our environment, loose hope. smacked down. Forrest don't! He just keeps going, no matter what others think of him or tell him otherwise. We should be all like him.
A somewhat over-average sci-fi movie, but apart from it playing under sea against aliens - I didn't feel it was really outstanding. It was definitively watchable and enjoyable, however.
Be like: ...Mobile Suit Gundam animes?
Rating: 8/10
I am a bit foncused because I am pretty sure I watched this on netflix recently but it isn't listed here. if you want to watch this, check out whether it is online there!
I didn't know before what this movie was about, and assumed a typical WW II or vietnam war movie likely.
I was pretty mistaken.
This movie is good and shcking, but I feel very, very tough to take often. For me it was often in the first half, when the absolute racist language was used regularly.
Overall, the focus of the movie was for the very most part not the fighting, but racial inequality, and in general having a huge priority on social issues and interaction.
And obviously, when watching this, and getting all the hope up for incoming changes - Yet, still a century later, we haven't archived to eliminate racism.
Rating: 9/10
First off, I hate romance movies. Why did I opt-in to watch this?
Also, I am a (mostly) straight man. To the movie.
You really need to be a patient person for this. Everything moves so slowly, and there are often long scenes without anything happening. I am not that emotional. It is pretty sensual though.
Bonus points if you are into art, music, history and culture, I suppose.
Rating: 7/10 - from someone who absolutely hates romance movies.
This movie is almost perfect, but having some very, very small calm moments here and there, which might make the movie feel a bit lagging.
It portraits the US Death Penalty in a pretty bad light - a light that is fully justified. Crowds cheering for the death of a person - it is just cruel. Sending someone into the death is not bringing your loved ones back, does not undo the crime, it is just that: Another person dead, there is no winner.
In the perversion of justice, the ones executing or being responsible for doing so have become monsters themselves.
The burden of a messiah, or a godsent person, and how he is dying for our sins as an innocent. Have to see all the harm and violence in the world, and have to endure it.
Some of the prisoners show actually quite some humanity. Humanity the system or even the survivors and relateds of the crimes lack.
Oh and yeah, that one warden is such a stupid jerk you cannot even fathom it.
Rating: 9.5/10
Chain Reaction (1996)
I think it was quite tense, albeit the scientific plot can be ignored. I have seen worse conspiracy & chase movies.
7/10
Oblivion (Around 2012?)
This caught my eye mostly because of Morgan Freeman in it.
In a post-apocalyptic world after a war with alien invaders, the Earth's moon has been destroyed in the process, and the Earth itself contaminated. Civiliation fled to Saturn's moon Titan, and resources are taken from Earth to uphold this last shelter of humanity.
Jack and his partner are placed on a mission on a tech-tower on Earth, having to constantly repair and protect super-armed drones which guards these resource sites while down there, the invaders named Scavengers (Scavs) are still around and pose a threat to humanity's last shelter.
They are not supposed to have memories prior to their mission, but Jack is haunted by dreams.
Both the initial situation of this as well as Morgan Freeman in this led me instantly believe there must be a major plot twist going on.
Rating: 9/10, watch this shit.
It is interesting nobody here noticed that literally everything in the movie is a sign for schizophrenia.In fact, I interpreted the movie once I noticed as absolutely everything it happens in there is just within his own mind:Him being the center of everything, people sending him secret message, imagining stuff that people said, taking every little hint to absurd levels of serious.
I would assume many people who now symptoms of schizophrenia would agree upon this.
Under this aspect, the whole show doesn't exist or any directors. It is all what he expects and assumes his life and environment to be.
I did expect it would be clarified at the end of the movie, but it wasn't. Him taking the door could be interpreted as him leaving his own mental bubble and mindset, though.
This has incredible detailed animation and images, really impressive.As are the badass songs. Sissy horse? Certainly not!
The movie translates it's messages well with few words.
Love to the details.
Else, it is beautiful, emotional and at times a tad bit sad.
9/10
There is also a follow up series - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Riding_Free
and another movie inc.- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Untamed
I didn't really know much about it, and didn't watch too many furry animes either. I think I actually foncused it with Beastars, and didn't know the difference between both.I actually thought both might be even related and one the successor to the other, or a spin-off
Back to BNA: It is likely less brutal than Beastars, overall pretty mild, family friendly, and maybe the biggest thing for it is...it is just charming, and a huge adventure with an equally charming as well as clumsy and adorkable main character. It is about getting amazed over and over by this awesome world and creatures! And they are all so cute and adorkable!!
Yet, surprisingly, despite being so adventurous and light-hearted, it manages to maintain a thrilling story which wants you to watch the next episode to unravel some secrets.
Be Like: The Cat Returns, A Whisker Away (maybe, still unwatched), Whisper of the Heart (maybe, still unwatched), Beastars (maybe, still unwatched), some western adventure-fairytales
Rating: 10/10, I loved it!
Akame Ga Kill
I am in the mid of it, and I am deeply impressed. It started a tiny bit slow, but not too much. It is quickly escalating to some extreme scenes. It is about a assassination group killing corrupts in a government city, supporting rebels to overthrow a corrupt government.
The characters are pretty extreme, fleshed out, interesting and come with backgrounds, they don't feel like they are thrown in lovelessly.
There is an openly gay character, a possibly hinting lesbian and trans character, but unlike most animes, I like that they are merely making it one attribute of the characters, instead of the defining one. That guy dude is a bastard of a fighter and is surely remembered by the audience for that and his motivational words!
It is also pretty brutal, for that matter. Albeit so far, still miles away from the likes of Hellsing Ultimate.
Familiar to: Hunter X Hunter, Black Bullet, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Rating: 10/10
The Asterisk War (Netflix)
Genre; Pretty slight ecchi and harem, but mainly action
I think it started somehow interesting, but became repetitive, especially in the tournament. A plot that is barely advancing, of which the tournament takes a large place in, add random weapons each is carrying and you got your pretty average action anime.
The initial plot device of the lost sister doesn't advance much at all, and when you got a 16yo protagonist that is not a pervert, but seemingly seems to see a 13yo naked or her having feelings for him or whatever, that's pretty cringe.
There are also some concepts, such as among special humans are even more special ones, but there is simply no difference in the story line regarding them - why introduce that in the first place then? There are tons of anime that have done that much better, where these even more rare humans are often ousted from society, like the cursed children in Black Bullet.
The fights in this anime often come over as cheap as well as randomly, think being it closely to I am almost to loose, but this anime just randomly puts down a random weapon concept to have me win this fight!
And why is it even named like that, there isn't a war at all in here. :confused:
Honestly, at some point I just didn't care about anything in the anime at all.
Rating: 4/10
AngelBeats (netflix)
This was weird all along. Some fighting, pretty weird humour and often over-the-top. It got pretty good rating, but wasn't my cup of tea. Somehow some kind of highschool musical drama I suppose?
The visuals have been stunning, maybe too stunning. I didn't feel much anticipation and excitement for the next episodes, and there is barely tension, overall pretty lighthearted.
Rating: 5/10
I can't believe there is an anime that is sicker and more grotesque freakshow than the year 2020.
It starts with a 2-on-2 one-sided fight, where team A is wearing masks and getting beaten hard and Team B is a girl...AND A CROCODILE-MAN. He takes a guy from Team masks...AND PUTS HIM RIGHT INTO HIS MOUTH - Where he is greeted by another man at the end of the mouth which speaks to that poor victim.
The outro of each episodes goes likes this: And in this episode we learned...and what will happen in the next episode is engulfed in the mist of chaos!
And this is pretty fitting: The whole series is just a chaotic mess. It is CONSTANTLY topping itself into more and more of the extreme. Half the time you will thing "For real? Did this really just happen!?" and the other half "HOLY SHIT! OH FIRETRUCK"
Make no mistake. This anime is absolutely brutal, and introduced background characters barely make it past the one minute mark. On the contrary, you think some of the characters in the early are making the impression of quickly getting replaced or being unimportant, when surprisingly the anime is also spinning around them much throughout.
It is actually hard to say which side is even the protagonists. And it seems to be more important that things are happening than actually figuring out who the strongest guy is or how other parties getting defeated. It is even hard to say which group are the good guys, if there are even any in this anime.
And despite all this chaos which is spiraling out of control more and more each time, the anime is surprisingly consistent, reasoned, has a streamlined story line and creating tension and excitement to bingewatch all of it like I did.
Genre rating horror-thriller-gore: 10/10
I refuse to give a general rating for this, if you can't take gore or horror, this anime isn't for you. If you can take it but aren't too into it, I urge you to give this a try.
Be like: Blood Blockade Battlefront (maybe, didn't want past the first episode), Hellsing (Hellsing being more serious), Soul Eater (with SE being less bloody and likely even less random. Yes, Soul Eater is less random than Dorohedoro), One Punch Man (randomness, but surprisingly Dorohedoro is more serious and brutal), I think in terms of the kind of humor some Scandinavian live action movies might be fitting like Seven Psychopaths, in Bruges or Adam's Apples, this anime goes might be like some crazy DC supervillains such as Harley Quinn.
Fun fact: Dorohedoro means "mud-sludge".
Info: Season 2 announced roughly in May 2021. I can't wait for this!
Great moments of the anime and reactions of mine below (spoiler)
So, did you watch it? Let me know your thoughts on this anime!
I can't believe there is an anime boss that might beat Saitama.
En. He turns enemies into mushrooms.
When I opened my eyes for the first time, I was surrounded by mushrooms. I have turned my parents into mushrooms.
I had to defeat him, he is my nemesis. Everything was covered in mushrooms. The whole city was turned into mushrooms. This is the truth behind the Day of the Mushroom of Doom.
From the moment he was born, En was surrounded by mushrooms. He believes he transformed his parents into mushrooms, and survived by eating them
The introduction to this review starts with one word: OUGH.
Make no mistake in assumption about this movie: It is politically incorrect, gross, misogynistic, racist and stupid. The good news in this is that most of this gross stuff is turned around, the stereotypes it starts with are basically shown to be not true.
I think the presentation of Kazakhstan, and especially it's people, was unnecessary for all of it's messages however, and I can fully understand every outrage about these parts and suggested images of them.
It took me a while to realize that apart of the Kazakhstan part and the character Borat and his played daughter pretty much everyone is not an actor and was not giving insight about the movie, or which kind of movie it would become.
It really wonders and baffles me how they pulled all of this off: What they did do, and maybe more how they must have filmed it. Because I have my doubts that they went around with a huge visible camera.
It is just absurd, and who they found and pranked in it, you would be like "nobody is ever like this" - except they were.
Some of the most absurd parts include a handbook for how girls are to be raised, and what they are not allowed to in Kazakhstan, such as driving a car or being a journalist. Take this a step further, as it was likely intended to be, and it shall be applies to religious conservatives and the bible.
Others conspiracy theories about Democrats, covid19, and Jews, and either disproving them, mocking them by calling the believers scientists or well...even topping them with one of it's own.
The other thing...well, they surely don't know any boundaries. But it also must mean you need to be pretty tough to act in this movie; Whether it is posing in a weird Borat mankini, making the most indiscreet remarks, including racist or antisemitic, to...well offering oneself as a woman visually to a crowd. You really need the correct actors for that willing to do, I suppose.
"fun" fact 1: The people of Kazakhstan did create a petition with 100k people who signed against the release of the movie. Also, no scenes were shot in Kazakhstan.
fun fact 2: I wonder if the movie had a take in guns getting temporary removed from Walmart. There is a scene where one supposingly got one from there and opens fire, and the movie got released on 23th Oct - the guns were removed before 30th Oct.
Rating: 8/10*
A beautiful story, maybe a fairy tale. The characters are destinct from each other, standing out, and overall it is just a great family-friendly adventure, which made me gasping for all the events and world-building. It will send you into a world of mysterious wonders, waiting to get revealed in order to amaze you.
I really felt the effort in this. It is a bit hard to say that apart from the above what REALLY makes this so likeable, from the sympathic characters or just hitting the exact perfect pacing - nothing is rushed nor really standing still for too long.
This is actually a sequel or spin-off of "Whisper of the Heart", starring the baron cat again. (Which I don't think having watched yet and certainly not recently)
Be like: Princess Mononoke (likely, never watched it)...nevermind, on the trakt.tv preview screen PM looks rather bloody lol.
Maybe a more modern fairy tale version of Alice might be somewhat fitting as a description
Rating: 10/10
Actually and weirdly, I thought this would be some kind of cute animated pixar family movie. Heh, it was not.
I think the movie is actually pretty hard to swallow at times.
Some hefty abuse Chappie goes through, and we are also confronted with about three different villain groups, so it was kinda hard to expect and anticipate the concrete outcome and story plot in advance (plus point). It could have easily went into many different directions.
The cruel world and environment aside, I felt it also pretty interesting in terms of social interactions and role models.
There was also quite some character development in the movie, and by this I don't mean just Chappie (you often just feel sorry what he must endure!), but rather especially Ninja, who goes from badass super jerk to....actually caring about people, and even willing to give his own life for them. That was...pretty touching.
Also, poor America! - What was up with all these weird names anyway!?
Rating: An emotional 9/10
This is watchable, but still hugely overrated. It is definitively enjoyable, but the plot is just sooo foreseeable. There are many movies with a similiar theme and twist that just perform way better.
Rating: 7.5/10
PS: People being tracked by electronical implants is a conspiracy theorist's wet dream for Bill Gates.
A story about a huge super-almighty AI. It poses some pretty interesting ethical questions:
What makes us human? Consciousness? Emotions? Is an AI with both a human? Or does it need a human body?
How far are we allowed to go in our progress of using technology? When it is too much? Sure, having everyone connected like at the end of the movie is too far, but where exactly was the line? And aren't we connected to each other way too much already nowadays?
Is it ethically allowed to grow a human body and insert a previous backed up consciousness into it?
Are we allowed to re-create out environment, healing it, with micro robots if we are able to? Fiddle with the very nature? Or are we already way more cruel to it today?
Overall, I think this movie was well over-averaged, but not among the best. There are some logical holes, for instance, why isn't the AI fully informed of the plans against it? Shouldn't it been able to monitor and anticipate their moves, or coming and aiming at least? For that matter, it did before when informing the FBI about the whereabouts of RIFT...
Yet, in the end, it has proven to be human, by being willing to destroy itself out of fears of humanity, or becoming to artificial itself. I am not sure one can even describe the reason for the (basically) self-destruction if not for our very values.
I felt Freeman's performance a bit underwhelming, I felt the wrong actor played the wrong role. I think it would be much more interesting if he played the 2nd scientist, asking all the moral questions.
Rating: 8/10
The story about someone who is going to kill the murderer of his wife. The issue? He can't remember anything that has happened more than 10 minutes ago, and he is making photos and notes to help him on that. Yet, his notes and what people do or claim to do are contradicting often, and it becomes a mayor theme of the movie who he can even trust.
Often, movies with such a premise ended up being a mayor disappointment for me because the execution being pretty lackluster, but this one not so.
Pretty much every movie is just going forward, occasionally looking into the past for backgrounds of actions, or sometimes, like Deadpool 1, set the start of the movie of the past.
This is different from that. You begin with the end of the story, and you will literally discover the truth about how the story began at the very end of the movie. Not conspiracies or anything like that, but literally the whole timeline.
I think this is really a movie of it's own kind and can barely compared to any other. It is at times confusing, especially at the start if you are unaware of how the story is told in the first place.
Rating: 10/10
Collateral 2004
This is quite watchable and I think the two main actors are doing well, with the killer being especially bad ass.
I felt the female cast was pretty weak in performance, and the character both forgettable and just artificially made important emotionally.
Maybe it is more important to note what the movie lacks rather than what he has:
The whole investigation plot did stop suddenly, with no meaningful outcome either. It really let's one wonder: Why does it even exist? Or did they plan more of it and scrap other huge parts of it?
On a personal note, after the Max, the driver, made a very self-believing bet at the start of the movie, one might assume as I did it would be either a major repeating theme throughout the movie or would happen at an important show-down moment: Will you let me go if I win this, and if I loose you can kill us both? Neither did happen, and it was only used a single other time, but pretty irrelevant even.
You can still find quite some enjoyment in this movie, however.
Rating: 7/10
I usually like sci-fi movies, and this is no exception. There is usually a plot twist in these, but it was somewhat moderate in this one.
Still pretty great overall.
Rating: 8/10
Million Dollar Baby
TBH, based off the title my expectation was not a boxing movie.
I think that aside, it still went unexpected afterwards nonetheless.
Spoiler warnings
I did expect a movie about the utmost rise, and archiving your goals, and be content with your life after.
Yet what this movie showed what was the largest fall in life one could ever have.
And while I don't quite agree on the reasons for the end - I think as society as well as in media we need to talk more about how our lives will eventually end, and how we handle that as people.
Rating 9/10
