Last Seen Movie

Moonwalker - I knew ahead of time that this was not a proper movie. I guess it's classified as an anthology film. It's a series of vignettes, mainly music videos. The longest and easily the best segment of Moonwalker was the Smooth Criminal segment. It was so ridiculous and feels like a huge build-up to the actual Smooth Criminal performance. Joe Pesci was part of that segment, and he's easily the best part of the whole movie. He and the kids were pretty much the only actors! One of the actors was the main kid in The People Under the Stairs. It was nice to see him and he busted out some great MJ-style dance moves. The movie is a trip, with some crazy claymation and visual effects. The giant MJ Transformer was also insane. It was also weird to see MJ hang out with the kids. The longer those scenes last, the more unsettling they were. The first leg of the movie was just there. If they just cut out the first 35 minutes of the movie, then it would be a cohesive, still wild short film. I did laugh a few times, especially from Joe Pesci. Many segments of the movie are unforgettable, for better or worse. After watching this, I want to change my rating for Captain EO. I had a better time watching this than Captain EO, but it's still not a good movie. It's a good...something, at certain points. So Captain EO is now a 4/10. Moonwalker is 5/10.

Renfield (2023) a unoffical sequel to 1931's Dracula because they reshot some scenes form that movie.
And Nicolas Cage is playing the Count Dracula XD.
I really enjoyed this horror/comedy movie.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)
One of my favorite Quentin Tarantino movies.

Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story - This was an unauthorized biopic that aired on VH! in 2004. Unlike the new Michael Jackson biopic, it goes beyond the 80s, ending in 2004. That doesn't automatically make the movie better. Without seeing the new biopic, I have to believe Man in the Mirror is a lot worse. The movie feels like it's on fast forward as you go through major events in Jackson's life quickly without any stopping. You can't really feel the severity of these moments because the movie is impatient. It's 86 minutes! When you find out about the runtime, you have to expect the movie to breeze through things. That acceptance doesn't help, the movie should've never existed. It feels like a bootlegged film. None of the actors are widely known and the filmmaking feels so amateur. God, the cinematography was so annoying. The camera was shaking for no good reason. I can't recall a scene when the camera was still. The editing, as expected, was choppy and hyperactive. It looks so flat, and I can forgive it because it's a TV movie, but for a movie about Michael Jackson, there should've at least been some production value. I felt bad for Flex Alexander, who played Michael Jackson. He dances well, but he's not helped by the lackluster directing and writing. The dialogue was lousy. I don't want to hate on Flex Alexander's performance, but the dude sounded like Mr. Jefferson in South Park! They definitely sabotaged the actor with the horrific "whiteface!" Oh my goodness, you can see the makeup already melting. Sometimes he looked ghoulish, more than MJ after all the bleaching. Other times he looked like faded vanilla.

Because this is basically a bootleg of a biopic, no Michael Jackson music is featured. That hurts the movie a lot and the music used is very lame. They used news and archival footage. Some of it is blurred, perhaps for legal reasons. They showed the footage of Michael dangling Blanket instead of recreate it. Such a brief appearance of the real Michael Jackson, you can tell that whiteface Flex Alexander looks like a cheap cosplay! The movie made me laugh quite a few times. It has the qualities of "so bad it's good" movies. I think I would've enjoyed it more if I watched it with people. It was pretty painful watching it alone. At least this movie got into the allegations, though they didn't really take a side, or at least they leaned on MJ being not guilty. It ended with him getting acquitted. The movie is obviously bad, but I think you can get some enjoyment out of the sheer incompetence. 1/10

Primate - Weird to double feature this with Man in the Mirror. But at least this movie offered something Man in the Mirror and Moonwalker doesn't...a monkey! Bubbles didn't have a proper presence in Moonwalker. Okay, I'll let that slide. Man in the Mirror didn't have a chimp, and that was so strange. I know the movie skipped a lot of stuff, but Bubbles? Hell, Man in the Mirror had Janet Jackson and the new Michael biopic doesn't! Anyway, I also wanted to watch Primate because it would be easy entertainment, and something to even out my movie count of the year. To be specific, I hit 90 with Primate. I wanted to end the month with having watched 20 movies in April. Anyway, Primate was basically an 80s horror B-movie released in 2026. I'm sure it was influenced by Stephen King's Cujo. The plot is very simple, the characters are one-note and idiotic, and it's all about the scares and gore. The movie achieved all that, and I'm satisfied. I can still criticize the movie. Some of the decisions characters made were so damn stupid. The premise of the movie is also unrealistic given the Hawaii location. Rabies is effectively not a thing in Hawaii, so this would not have happened. And even if it did, nobody had damn rabies vaccines just in case? The stupidity could've been overwhelming, but thankfully there were some elements that grounded the movie. Troy Kotsur's presence was one of the biggest examples. The deaf and sign language representation was so cool and authentic. Kotsur and other pros consulted with the director, and I think it gave some identity to the movie. Another defining trait of the movie was Ben the chimp. They didn't use any CGI. I know the Michael biopic has a CGI, perhaps even AI-generated Bubbles. I could tell from clips that it was so fake. With Ben the chimp in this movie, the practicality was so clear. It did get to a point where I could tell it's someone in a suit, but it beats CGI. Also, the guy who played Ben apparently had no film experience, he was a theater actor. So he adapted very well. The gore in the movie is also great, though I wish there were more examples. That would require a higher body count, which I also would've liked. Still, for a low-budget film that was primarily set in one location, it gets the job done. 7/10

The Visitor - I was so excited to watch this movie. I saw a clip of the evil little girl wounding someone and I laughed! I looked into it a bit and got the impression that this was an insane movie made by Italians, who were trying to make their version of The Omen. I later learned that the movie somehow shares some things in common with The Omen 2. Both films feature Lance Henriksen, who quite frankly felt out of place in this movie. He would later claim The Visitor is a turkey, so that re instead ofinforced my stance on his presence. Anyway, this movie delivered on what I expected and wanted. It was a completely nonsensical and insane movie. It was unintentionally hilarious, and the filmmaking choices felt like pure fuckery. The sound design was overly aggressive, the mixing was rough, especially with bird screeches and other non-human sound effects. The dubbing is rough in places. At one point, the mom speaks while her mouth is open and not moving! The dialogue is very clunky and definitely sounds like English as someone's 2nd language. Insane moments can happen randomly, the shock value in this movie is quite high at times. It's also a very strange blend of genres. It's mainly a sci-fi/horror film, but it can veer into pure thriller when things are just cold and not a lot is happening. A cop tries to investigate the evil little girl, and that felt like a crime thriller. The opening and closing of the movie were pure sci-fi, with Franco Nero of all people essentially playing Space Jesus.

So yeah, The Visitor was totally up my alley. An unhinged Italian genre romp! Unfortunately, that strong vibe wasn't consistent throughout the film. It's very slow in places. It's weird to make this comment considering how paper thin the plot was, but there was a good deal of filler in the narrative. It's also way too long. It's 1 hour and 48 minutes, and it felt like it was over 2 hours. This should've been a 90-minute movie. Even with that, I suspected that there was a significant amount of footage cut as scenes lack a good transition. Certain events are set up and just done off camera, and you're supposed to assume they were done. A few shots were reused. The editing of this movie is a double-edged sword. Sometimes it contributed to the insanity, other times it hurt the whole flow of the film. Some of the acting is rough, but most of the screen time was on the little villain, played by Paige Conner. I'm not easily amused by child actors, but she easily carried the movie. She wasn't traditionally great, but she delivered on the crazy things they had her do. She was tasked to do some very physical things. It turned out that the girl was very athletic, which led to some surprisingly crisp stunt-driven scenes. Shout out to the stunt performers who were also part of those moments. There was even a crazy car stunt scene. It didn't involve the girl, but that was still exciting. It would've fit in The French Connection. If the movie cut down the filler and had slightly better editing, then this would've been a top-tier niche gem. It's almost there. Regardless, I'll watch this again. I love movies that not everyone likes. I love wacky genre blends. I may have hyped myself too much for this movie, but it at least didn't disappoint me overall. I was so exhausted when the movie finished, and I still had another to watch! That movie should've been watched first, then The Visitor, but I'm not in charge of the Friday night double feature watch parties I take part in. Anyway, this film is a 7.5/10

Ink - I definitely would not have heard of this movie on my own. Someone had to have picked it for a watch party. This 2009 indie film i another unusual sci-fi movie that blends other genres. Not horror, like The Visitor, but action with a family drama and character study in the middle. It's very ambitious and for a $250k budget, some of the filmmaking is surprising in a good way. Unfortunately, the budget and perhaps lack of experience from the writer/director also negatively impacted the movie. This one has a similar runtime to The Visitor at 1 hour and 47 minutes. It also moves very slowly. Both films start off with bold and crazy sequences, and then slow down and meander at many points. I felt that was more prominent in Ink. Maybe I would be more forgiving if I had watched this separate from the double feature or at least before The Visitor. I wasn't as enthused from the big sequences as The Visitor. The fight scenes were very much inspired by the films that influences action movies in the 2000s, namely The Matrix and the Jason Bourne films. Part of me thinks Christopher Nolan may have been inspired. In the third act, there's a huge fight sequence that reminded me of the hallway fight scene in Inception, minus the anti-gravity. Also the first major set scene had crazy time-reversal stuff that might've been in Tenet. The movie also has fantasy elements, with multiple planes of existence, one is a dream-like world that also made me think of Inception. The story is pretty much a dark fairytale about a little blonde girl, who isn't evil like in The Visitor. She's kidnapped by an deformed man with a ridiculously large nose. God, it looked like they wanted the character, whose name is Ink, to be a Jewish stereotype. It was perhaps unintentionally offensive. It was also a little hard to take the character seriously with that big nose. On top of that, his story largely reminds me of the Frankenstein creature. There is a big reveal about Ink toward the end that I predicted halfway through the movie. Well, I also wanted that reveal, because it otherwise would not have made sense why this ugly character was featured so prominently.

I tried to be forgiving to the acting since the cast is filled with no-names. But damn, some of them were hard to take seriously. The guy who played the Pathfinder was the worst. He came off like a goofy character in a SyFy original series. The movie looks like that overall! That's another thing, the visual choices in this movie are so flawed, likely because of the budget. The color grading in particular is so glaring and distracting. There was way too much "bloom" in the movie. I later learned the purpose was to distinguish the different worlds, but with a higher budget and a better editor, it would've looked vibrant instead of eye-searing. I also got very annoyed with the quick cuts. It was clear that they were done to hide the clunky fight choreography. The editing in most of the fight sequences were similar to The Raid, but without long takes and a sober editor. It's unfortunate because the third act had some decent fight scenes, but I keep thinking about how annoyingly edited the earlier scenes were. Going back to the acting, the main character was unlikable, and the actor playing him didn't do enough to make me empathize with him. You're supposed to as the narrative unfolds, but I couldn't really get on board. It didn't help that I kept thinking the guy looked familiar. I thought he was part of a Power Rangers project, a fannade one, but I couldn't be entirely sure.

The third act basically saved the movie. It wasn't great, but it was better than everything else. I think I was pretty forgiving toward the movie, but it reached a point where I couldn't. I watched far worse movies this week, and I think that helped in me not being so hard on Ink. With that said, I kept thinking about how much better this film would've been if it was written and directed by Wayne Kramer. He made Running Scared in 2006. That film had similar editing choices, it was a crazy blend of genres. It was a dark fairytale masquerading as a crime thriller! That movie also prominently featured a child. Paul Walker was the star, he was certainly better than the all the actors in Ink. That's such an underrated gem, and that's what Ink could've been if everybody involved was more skilled and experienced. Still, I appreciate the effort and overall ambition of the movie. 6/10

Last night,




Silly start,,, Then it got Interesting.
After that:

Sort of the same Sinerio.
Then I topped it off with:

Just watched the new Mortal Kombat 2 - pretty much like the first, but damn seeing Karl Urban talk normally after The Boys is a bit jarring.

Doom - While Predator is seen as a classic action movie, critics back then and people over the years described the movie as a boring walk through the jungle. On top of that, the characters were very flat. When the Predator comes, the movie lights up. Obviously, I don't share these thoughts. Those criticisms can be levied against this film from 2005. Doom is pretty much what Predator is to people who hate that film. This was the 2nd viewing of the film. I think my first time was around 20 years ago. I'm sure I watched it on TV. In hindsight, I must've been on a Dwayne Johnson kick, because I remember watching Gridiron Gang and The Rundown around this time. Doom is easily the worst of the three. I even believed that back then. For many years, the opinion I held onto regarding Doom was that it was very boring up until the third act, which was when it actually became a little like DOOM! The capitalization matters, this movie doesn't deserve to be called "DOOM." I never played the games, but I know what they're like. I know about the amazing music, the creative monster designs, and a lot of the mechanics. DOOM is practically ubiquitous for a video game series. Doom doesn't have that feel. Instead of being a walk in the jungle, it's a walk through a nondistinct space colony and research facility. I watched the unrated version, which is 7 minutes longer, and didn't really improve anything. So it's 1 hour and 52 minutes, and I think about 10% of the movie is action, and that's being generous. Long stretches of the movie consist of these uninteresting characters walking through dimly lit hallways. Sometimes they encounter monsters, but the locations are still dimly lit! You can't really appreciate the creature designs because of the shitty lighting and the CGI! Also, it felt like half of the "scary" encounters are infected people. I think the movie blatantly tried to rip off Predator and zombie movies. Hell, it may have ripped off the Resident Evil movies from the 2000s. The action sequences are so quick that you can blink and miss many of them. It doesn't help that the music is so spare and generic. I've listened to the original DOOM soundtrack a lot over the years. None of that is in this movie. Granted, the game's soundtrack consists of songs that are blatantly similar to rock and metal tracks like Master of Puppets. But surely this movie could've had some badass rock and metal to keep the movie lively. Nope!

The characters suck, but that's down to the writing. Karl Urban was very bland, and he's naturally charismatic. Rosamund Pike, an Oscar-caliber actress, is hurt big time by the movie. A big reason is that she has to do an American accent, and she struggles. She would nail down the American accent later, like in Gone Girl. Karl Urban's American accent was similarly low in quality. Both of their accents reminded me a bit of Jason Statham's shitty American accent in The One. The first several years of The Rock's acting career were so inconsistent. This was one of his worst roles. His ADR stuck out badly, and his delivery was so subdued. When he raised his voice, he sounded slightly agitated. He never seemed mad. Also, he spammed the eyebrow raise for the first half of the movie. I definitely remembered The Rock's heel turn. I think I liked it back then. I kind of like it now because it was something different. They kind of hinted that he would lack empathy based on what he said in the beginning, but it felt like they forgot about that until the third act. I'm pretty sure I liked the third act quite a bit in my first viewing. I know I liked it less this time around. It was still decent, but the POV style started to run its course. It could've worked better, but I think they did it only out of obligation. There was nothing very creative with the POV style, and the CGI didn't help. The fight scene between The Rock and Karl Urban could've been great, but the damn lack of lighting! Thank goodness they didn't have The Rock go CGI Scorpion King, I was concerned when his face changed.

Back to ripping off Predator, The Rock said, "If it breathes, kill it." Clearly inspired by "If it bleeds, we can kill it." I think they based "Destroyer" on Bill Duke's Mac. He was Black and bald, he used the minigun. He even crashed out like Mac and wasted ammunition. And then they had another Black character named "Duke." Surely he's named after Bill Duke. That guy was no Bill Duke, he was a joke. He had an unexplained fear for "nanowalls," which weren't intimidating at all. Also, Destroyer didn't deserve that name. He was largely harmless. The other space marines sucked. One was the "Kid," who was a young-faced goober. Another was a sleazy guy, but not entertaining at all. And then there was a randomly religious guy. He cuts himself when he takes the Lord's name in vain. Damn, I ranted about this movie more than I expected. I also felt lied to. I saw a comment weeks ago that indicated Rosamund Pike went topless in the movie, and I somehow forgot that from my first viewing. But no, her nipples poked through her top at one point. Overall, Doom is a slog and waste of time. It was a strong reminder of how shitty video game movies were back then, and they kept coming out. At least nowadays there are some good ones. This should've been an easy no-frills genre romp. Just have a muscular man murder the fuck out of demonic monstrosities, that's a simpler story than what this movie tried to pull.

Despite the ranting, I would watch other films from the director, Andrzej Bartkowiak. That's mainly because he directed some movies I probably would've liked as a kid and somehow missed: Romeo Must Die, Exit Wounds, and Cradle 2 the Grave. I might check those out, I love Jet Li, even though his track record in American movies is spotty. Andrzej Bartkowiak also directed another video game adaptation that I know I'll hate. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. It seems like he was a better cinematographer. He shot Species, The Devil's Advocate, Speed, and surprisingly quite a few other movies, now looking at his IMDB. Oh yeah, it just hit me that this movie also likely ripped off Aliens. Somehow that didn't come to mind at all during the viewing. I just kept thinking Predator. Either way, it's not a good sign when I think about a significantly better movie while watching something like this. 3/10

The Drama - Definitely an improvement from the writer/director's previous film, Dream Scenario. This was another dark comedy with absurd moments, including embarrassing scenes for the main male characters. Dream Scenario was carried by Nic Cage. The Drama was a 2-hander with Robert Pattinson and Zendaya. But I loved Pattinson a lot more. He was the undisputed MVP of the film, even though there were some surprising scene stealers among the cast. God, Pattinson might've given the best male acting performance of 2026 that I've seen. Granted, this is only the 6th movie of 2026 that I've seen. I like to think he will be near or at the top by the end of the year. Every emotional beat, every bit of delivery, every choice he made was fantastic. Pitch-perfect, no overacting, no underselling. His character could've easily sank the movie, but the man had such a powerful command over the role, frankly elevating Kristoffer Borgli's material. I will be fair and praise Zendaya as she had great chemistry with Pattinson and had plenty of her own highlights. Pattinson was just on another level. The acting overall did a lot for a narrative that can be a little flawed. The "twist" or secret in the movie might be triggering, but suspending my disbelief helped in making the whole narrative built around the secret palatable. The editing is very jarring and it took me a while to get with it. I mainly accepted it because I realized there was a narrative purpose to it. The Drama's a very intriguing, engaging, and entertaining movie. It's best to go in blind. It made me laugh, got me anxious at times, and always had my attention. 8/10

People's Champion: Eli Porter - This is a 40-minute documentary on Eli Porter's performance in a 2003 high school rap battle. The video became a viral sensation in the 2000s era of the internet, reaching the mainstream as artists like T-Pain and Kanye West referenced him. I remember watching the video years ago. I definitely didn't see it when it was freshly uploaded. It may have been around 2020. It was hilarious, but I didn't think a documentary could be made of it. I wasn't sure if the documentary was supposed to be serious because I found it very funny! The people interviewed were high school alums, people who had a hand in planning, filming, hosting, or judging the rap battle. You don't get a lot of info about Eli's opponent, Envy. In the end of the doc, there was text explaining what the people in the doc did after high school. No such explanation was given for Envy, he basically disappeared, despite being crowned the winner of the rap battle. While Envy won the battle, the true winner, the star of this whole event was Eli Porter. I enjoyed the often serious commentary people in the doc gave for something that was so trivial. It was a high school rap battle, it wasn't some epic event. But everyone treated it like that. They even got Andy Milonakis to give his commentary on the battle. His commentary was so ridiculous. Beyond the hilarity, the doc proved to be a great blast from the past. I'm 33, so I can remember growing up in the 2000s pretty well. Memories of early YouTube and internet consumption flooded my mind during the viewing. It was a specific nostalgia kick that doesn't happen enough. People keep flashing back to the 70s, 80s, or 90s. I think there should be a major trend in 2000s nostalgia. There is some, but I want more! This silly doc tapped into that, making me rate it higher than it probably deserves. One hurdle to get over with the doc is the dated language, namely the homophobia. 8/10

Rap World - Watching the Eli Porter doc was helpful in setting the tone for this movie. Co-written and co-directed by Conner O'Malley and Danny Scharar, this 56-minute movie came out in 2024, but everyone involved committed to making the movie look and feel like it was filmed in 2009! All of the footage was shot on a period-accurate video camera. The editing is sometimes spastic and deliberately flawed, as if they just started using Avid or Final Cut. Hell, it could've been edited with Windows Movie Maker! The footage is rough, but it totally warped me to 2009. I wonder if the Eli Porter doc inspired the creators of this. The characters in the story are 20-somethings who planned to record their rap album. The footage is supposed to be a making-of documentary, but most of it consists of them fucking around, essentially procrastinate. It's 100% a comedy, there's no question about Conner O'Malley and co's intentions. It was absolutely hilarious, but it also gave an even harder nostalgic kick than the Eli Porter doc. The movie is set in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, which is apparently 1 hour north from me. I don't know if they actually shot in northeast Pennsylvania. There weren't enough exterior shots that would help me confirm this. It doesn't matter, because they still captured certain locations that I was so familiar with in 2009, namely Walgreens and parking lots. I hung out with friends in those spots back then. I was the youngest of the group at 16, while the others were over 18. The behaviors of the main characters and others remind me of these friends. Conner O'Malley's character reminds me of someone I used to be close with in elementary school. We stopped being close after I moved far away from him and were no longer in the same classes. I reconnected with him online during my high school years, and learned that he became a father. Conner O'Malley's character was a father, so the parallels were apparent. God, the clothes the characters wore were so 2000s. One of the rap group members wore an Avenged Sevenfold shirt that I'm sure I saw on Hot Topic back then! It would've been enough that this movie is hilarious with a few shocking moments. But the attention to detail, the commitment to the time period, it surpasses filmmakers who tried to recreate the 80s and 90s. The immersion level of this movie is so high. At 56 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome. By the way, the Eli Porter doc and Rap World are free to watch on YouTube. Connor O'Malley's a great comedian. I don't know if he's done a feature-length theatrical film. I hope he does that because that kind of comedy is in a terrible state nowadays. His brand of comedy would be so refreshing. I think Rap World is essential viewing for millennials, this is such an accurate depiction of 2009. You don't have to be from Pennsylvania to relate to the movie. One of the funniest scenes was when the producer got laughed at and shut down by a woman he had a crush on. He then shot a video that would totally be posted on YouTube in the late 2000s. A pathetic young man crashing out over a woman and making the dumbest analogies. It's kind of similar to the "Leave Britney alone" video. The filming style is almost identical. Anyway, Rap World was such a delight. 9/10



I wanted to celebrate Goku Day (May 9), so I watched 2 Dragon Ball movies. Not the animated ones and no fan films. I'm talking live action ones...

Dragonball Evolution - This movie is infamous and for good reason. It's an abysmal manga/anime adaptation. Every single frame of this movie is disrespectful to Akira Toriyama's creation. It's a spit in the face of the voice actors who brought most of these characters to life. Fan films are better than this 20th Century Fox film. The whitewashing of characters is horrendous, and it doesn't help that the actors were so boring and incompetent. I have grown to feel bad for Justin Chatwin. He at least admits that the movie sucks and he apologizes for it. Still, the damage is done. I recognize that this movie caused Akira Toriyama to return to Dragon Ball, bringing new life to the franchise, leading to more movies and Dragon Ball Super. I see that as a Monkey's Paw scenario for people who wished for more Dragon Ball. This was actually my 2nd viewing. I first watched it in 2015 on Goku Day! I knowingly subjected myself to torture. I did it again this year, but to soften the blows, I watched the movie along with a reaction channel. That helped a lot, as they made some funny comments. They also hated the movie. Shamefully on this 2nd viewing, I laughed a bit from the movie. It was mostly because of the shitty acting from Justin Chatwin, my love of "so bad it's good" movies was coming out. I basically had a less miserable time in this 2nd viewing, but that's not enough for me to change my rating on it. This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. 0/10

Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins - I heard about the movie a long time ago, but somehow didn't think of watching it until this Goku Day. This 1991 film from Taiwan is an unofficial live action adaptation of Dragon Ball, "loosely" inspired by the 1986 DB movie, Curse of the Blood Rubies. That was basically a retelling of the Emperor Pilaf saga, so if you're familiar with that, then you should recognize much of this adaptation's story. Even so, they had to change names to not infringe on copyright. For example, Goku is "Monkey Boy" in this film. Yamcha is "Westwood," Roshi is "Turtle Man," etc. I'm not sure if the costume design and overall looks of characters were also changed for copyright reasons. The main villain looked nothing like Pilaf or the main villain in Curse of the Blood Rubies. Turtle Man is a skinny bald man with a turtle shell on his back, so they got certain aspects right. That includes character features. Monkey Boy is a country bumpkin, a fish out of water like in the source material. Westwood is scared of women and has a crush on the Bulma counterpart, "Seetou." The Shou and Mai equivalents look completely different. They look like color-coated ninjas in a Godfrey Ho film! The movie is a low-budget bootleg of Dragon Ball, but it's much more faithful to the source material than Dragonball Evolution! It definitely captures the lighthearted tone, while DBE was overly serious most of the time, with badly executed comedy bits. Monkey Boy is more like Goku than the DBE version. The movie is very flawed on many levels, but that adds to the charm. The flaws in DBE are unforgivable. I laughed quite a bit from The Magic Begins, more from the goofy and insane moments than the legit comedy. But the legit comedy is decent! Of course, the shabby English dubbing added to the hilarity.

One flaw that hurts the movie is the visual effects, specifically in the version of the movie I watched. I got a high-quality, supposed Blu-ray rip of the movie. The visual effects stuck out badly because they looked newer than the movie. I learned soon after that this was basically a Star Wars Special Edition thing. In 2007, the movie was remastered and renamed, "Dragon Ball: The Ultimate Edition." That was released on DVD, and I guess it got a Blu-ray release. All the visual effects were updated, but the digital nature of them clashed horribly with the original footage. The CGI was so amateur, most of the time looking like PS1 cutscene assets. I became increasingly annoyed from this, and eventually found a lower-quality version of the movie on YouTube. I played that side-by-side so I can appreciate the original effects. Those effects aren't technically good, but they are a lot more charming. Goofy optical effects are better than shitty CGI. One of the worst changes in this remastered version is the first Goku and Yamcha fight. For some reason, they inserted an almost 1-minute long CGI sequence in the middle of the fight. It took me out of the movie. They also added another CGI fight between Goku and Yamcha in the end credits. The original version of the movie didn't have that, ending right when they were about to trade strikes. That final shot is actually similar to the Dragonball Evolution one. I will admit that some of the new effects improved on the old ones, bust for the most part, they were completely unnecessary. Hell, it would've been more acceptable if they updated the music. Speaking of the music, they actually used Nightmare on Elm Street music when the Oolong counterpart was introduced. So they were fine with copyright infringement as long as it wasn't Dragon Ball. Updating the ki blasts would've been enough, everything else was rancid. The CGI fight sequences looked like a prototype for the first Virtua Fighter game.

So yeah, I might like the movie more if I properly watched the older version. I would have to stomach the potato VHS quality, but I might survive that. One other thing that bugged me a bit was the Roshi section. The movie basically stopped when "Turtle Man" was introduced. The pacing slowed down and it felt like watching a full episode of Dragon Ball. The anime is slow-paced at many points, so I guess that qualifies as a faithful adaptation of the source material! I still enjoyed the Roshi section, I just wished everything was done faster and some of the dialogue was cut down. The third act followed that sequence, which picked things up. The movie is 89 minutes, just a few minutes longer than DBE but better paced for the most part. I would like to watch The Magic Begins again. It captures the spirit of Dragon Ball, while standing out for its utter goofiness. After watching the movie, I learned about a Korean live action film adaptation that came out in 1990! The movie is "Dragon Ball: Son Goku Fights, Son Goku Wins." I thought about watching it after The Magic Begins, it's on YouTube, but it was so late at night. If I started it, it would've been after midnight, no longer Goku Day. I would also have to wrestle with the low quality. The movie only came out on VHS, no remaster exists. I'll probably watch it another time, maybe next Goku Day. Anyway, The Magic Begins gets a 7.5/10.

Mommie Dearest - I watched this for Mother's Day. I had heard about how over the top the movie was, so I expected that more than an accurate portrayal of Joan Crawford. The movie is based on the book written by her adoptive daughter, Christina Crawford. In that book and the movie, Joan Crawford is depicted as an abusive parent. I thought the movie succeeded in that depiction, but Christina Crawford doesn't like the movie and felt it missed the mark. I later read that the twin girls Joan Crawford adopted, who weren't even in the movie, called out Christina for lying about Joan Crawford. So I don't know how much of the movie is actually true. I figured it wouldn't be the full truth since it's a biopic. Also, some of the scenes are so insane that I doubt they went down exactly as the movie depicted. The infamous wire hanger scene is the perfect example.

Regardless of the authenticity, the movie managed to entertain me. It has gotten a reputation as a camp classic, maybe so bad it's good. It's complicated because I can see why people would label the movie either of those things. It is a mess of a movie with the jarring tonal shifts and how it can go 0 to 100 and then back to 0 in the span of 2 scenes. It often felt like they shot a grounded character study and a soap opera, then merged the two. Much of the "camp" comes from Faye Dunaway's extremely committed performance. I came away thinking a lot about her over-the-top moments, but I watched a video about Mommie Dearest, and one of the guys in it pointed out that most of Dunaway's performance is rather grounded. That's true, it's just that the crazy moments are so loud and dominating that they feel like the majority. However, Dunaway pulled very intense facial expressions regardless of the tone. So even in calm moments, her face is saying a lot. Her performance has been compared to drag queens, and that's so accurate. The video I downloaded has 2 commentary tracks. One by John Waters, and the other by drag queen Hedda Lettuce. That heavily indicated what kind of performance Faye Dunaway would give. Having said that, John Waters said right at the start of the commentary track that he thinks the movie is a serious drama and he doesn't agree with the "camp" label, nor does he think it's so bad it's good. I only listened to the first few sentences of the audio commentary. I would like to watch the movie again with his commentary and Hedda Lettuce's.

So yeah, I would watch this movie again. I won't say it's fully a "so bad, it's good" movie. Some parts come off as that. I lean more on the camp label, but it's definitely unintentional. Faye Dunaway's performance was likely her interpretation of Joan Crawford. I can see some truth in that because I think actors can be very narcissistic and overly dramatic. Still, she goes so far that it's hard to see the realness. And I'm not complaining, because I think she absolutely carries the movie! She refuses to talk about the movie, and the producer didn't like Paramount switching up on the film, marketing it as a camp classic. So nobody who worked on the movie intended it to be this hilarious romp that would please trashy cinema fans and queer people. But that's just the way the cookie crumbles. The movie lands in that unique territory, and I appreciate that. I laughed several times in the movie, but I was captivated in many ways. I could see the serious drama in the film, and that's good. To me, it makes the movie multifaceted. It's not just funny. There are serious flaws though. Some of the acting outside of Dunaway's performance is stiff, namely from the actresses who played the child and adult Christina Crawford. The movie's erratic shifting from grounded to over the top muddies the narrative. However, abusive relationships can be a series of dramatic highs and lows. The editing really hurts the movie. Not just with the tonal shifts, but with the pacing. The film is 2 hours and 9 minutes, and I felt that was a little too long. There was also this weird tendency for the camera to just stay on Faye Dunaway's face for extra beats! With that said, some of the flaws make the movie rather entertaining. I still would trim down the movie, but I wouldn't trim down the dragged-out face shots! They helped make Dunaway look insane.

Mommie Dearest is definitely a fascinating movie. It's an acquired taste, and my tastes pretty much align with it. As far as legit praise outside of Dunaway's performance, I think the cinematography is strong. The production design, especially for Joan Crawford's house, is great. I think they nailed down the 40s-50s look. The makeup work on Faye Dunaway is fantastic, and there's even impressive aging makeup on Rutanya Alda, who played the housemaid Carol Ann. The costume design is also great, especially with what Faye Dunaway wears. Unfortunately, she and the costume designer Irene Sharaff didn't get along. After watching Mommie Dearest, I looked at the IMDB trivia page and learned that Faye Dunaway is notoriously difficult to work with. This movie bombing derailed her career, but I have to assume that her reputation also contributed to that. It's a shame because she is a great actress. I haven't seen many movies starring her, but I unironically think Mommie Dearest is her best performance! She was scary, funny, and evil. All the other actors were operating at a mild level, while Dunaway was up in the clouds. Such a commanding performance is the biggest reason I give Mommie Dearest an 8/10.

The Fanatic - I first watched this film in 2021. I watched it a second time to refresh my memory of it and to get ready for a roast by a podcast. I apparently rated the movie a 6/10 from the first viewing. I don't remember why. Maybe I was too forgiving toward John Travolta's performance. Or I put a lot of stock on how unintentionally funny the movie was. Either way, this movie deserves a lower rating. I remember John Travolta saying that Fred Durst was the best director he worked with. Considering that he worked with Brian De Palma, Quentin Tarantino, and John Woo, such praise for first-time film director Fred Durst was ludicrous. I think he said that just to hype up the movie, but perhaps he mainly meant it because Durst let him go. Durst co-wrote the movie, and his viewpoint on the toxic stan culture is very misguided based on how Travolta's character Moose acts. With Travolta's penchant for over the top acting, I imagine he was able to go wild with whatever Durst and the other writer crafted. The result is a character who is seemingly neurodivergent, but his attitude is not properly analyzed or confronted. Based on how the movie ends, there's not really any reckoning or understanding of the character. A flashback of his mom bringing a guy home while a child version of him is watching Night of the Living Dead doesn't give any meaningful insight into his past. That's really the movie in a nutshell, surface level and narrow-minded, but at least charged up through Travolta's weirdly committed and hysterical performance. He gave Simple Jack vibes at many points, even though such a stereotype had been dead in the 2010s. The whole approach to Moose from Durst and Travolta is so tacky and dated. I could buy this being made in the 90s or 2000s, but 2019?! It's also hilariously awkward that Travolta, who was in his mid-60s at the time, played a character who is best friends with a 20-something girl, admires an actor who is at least 20 years younger than him, and is easily pressed by men in their 20s. They never revealed how old Moose is, but you can't tell me that he's younger than 40, and that's being generous to Travolta, who has aged very well. Since the movie's all about Moose, and he's incredibly flawed on a casting and writing level, the whole movie crumbles.

Again, the movie is unintentionally funny, but not enough to where it's a bad movie classic like The Room. It's definitely great roasting material. However, sometimes, the movie meanders. It's an 89-minute movie, but it has filler in the form of animated drawings of Moose, acting as transitional scenes. They deserved no purpose. The movie also kind of felt repetitive with there only being a handful of locations. The movie is set in Los Angeles, but the way the story goes and how the movie is shot, the city felt very small. It was crazy when characters bump into each other so quickly, as if there's only one downtown spot. Devon Sawa's casting as the actor Moose idolized was surely because of the actor's famous inclusion in the music video for Eminem's Stan. His character was now on the receiving end of this psychotic behavior. I don't know if the movie wanted the viewer to feel sorry for Moose. I laughed more at the guy than anything, even when he's wailing and in pain. I guess they tried to make Sawa's character, Hunter Dunbar, sympathetic by having a son who is under the custody of the ex-wife. The problem is that not a lot is done to make Dunbar a fully realized character. He's more or less an asshole, even though his resistance to Moose is justified. They showed him kissing the maid, but there was no furthering of that plot point. The real victim of the movie was the maid, she's forgotten about so easily until the movie forces you to remember, even though it's obvious what happened to her in one scene and how there was no follow-up to it. Durst is not a good screenwriter, the maid stuff is a major plothole. He also doesn't seem to double-check his work. The editing in the film is very sloppy. I think a few scenes were arranged incorrectly. Moose takes issue with a street entertainer/hustler named Todd. Todd has a guy named Slim steal wallets from distracted audience members while Todd is doing some cheap magic. After that, Slim is frustrated and quits being Todd's partner. Fast forward to Todd and Slim celebrating and then bullying Moose in a public bathroom. Wait a minute, isn't Slim done with Todd? Next time Todd is shown, he goes to Moose, wanting him to effectively replace Slim. Todd and Slim's bathroom celebration should've been first, then the falling out! So that's one glaring flaw with the editing. A more minor but notable one was when Hunter Dunbar weirdly tries to make a blended drink with some green vegetable and a jelly-looking object. He stops a half-second after turning on the blender. In the end of that scene, the blender is completely clean, no ingredients! Flaws like that expose how much of an amateur film The Fanatic is, yet Fred Durst was able to get Devon Sawa and John Travolta on board.

If there's one thing to legitimately praise the movie for, it's the makeup work done on Travolta after a violent scene. Sure, it's a bit obscured by a room barely illuminated by the nightlight peering through a window, but it was still impressive. That's it! I think the movie's quality was guaranteed to be low after John Travolta's 2nd only line in the movie. His first was greeting a store owner. After that, he said, "I can't talk too long. I gotta poo." That's what The Fanatic is, sometimes funny shit. 2/10

Bloodsport - This is the 100th movie I watched in 2026. I wanted to celebrate the milestone with a film I love so much. With the recent news of Donald Gibb passing away, this film came to mind as something to celebrate watching 100 feature-length films. Donald Gibb was certainly one of the highlights among the cast, but of course, this was a Jean-claude Van Damme vehicle. A fantastic one at that, even though the source material is total bullshit. Frank Dux is a hardcore liar and it's hilarious now to read the end text. The stats seem downright inhuman. Despite this film being born from lies, it's an incredible martial arts film in a type where Hong Kong was dominating the genre. While the fights aren't long, they are very engaging. The cinematography and editing contributed to that. JCVD specifically is treated with solid slow motion, though the man's physical ability also helped. This was definitely the guy at his absolute physical peak, and I think even his likability was at its peak. It's not only the gateway JCVD film, it's also the pinnacle. It's the instant classic debut album, even though the man had been in a few movies before this, such as the amazingly bad and hilarious No Retreat No Surrender. To use a rap analogy, Bloodsport is JCVD's Illmatic. And I say that as someone who loves quite a few Van Damme films. Along with great fight scenes, the score slaps! I forgot how fantastic the score is. The composer may have been inspired by Lalo Schifrin's score for Enter the Dragon, it has similar vibes, but of course has an 80s punch. It even gets a little scary during the sequences of them walking through the tight and dark alleys of Kowloon. The soundtrack also slaps, with tremendously cheesy 80s song. The main theme sounds like it was crafted in a lab, taking ingredients from the Rocky films and the Karate Kid to create the ideal 80s movie theme. It was a success. The pacing is rather amazing. JCVD doesn't fight until 41 minutes. It's a 92 minute movie, so that's a significant amount of time. Despite that, I never felt that it came too late. It came at the perfect time. This film is very meticulously crafted, and I think much of the credit goes to JCVD. He didn't like how the movie was edited, so he took it upon himself to revise the movie. It paid off here. It didn't really pay off with Cyborg, but that's another story. JCVD really is the MVP of the film. While his acting is technically not great, the man exuded charm and had such a good aura about him. It's a shame cocaine and mental health struggles ruined that.

Anyway, much of the cast was entertaining. Donald Gibb as Frank Dux's friend Ray Jackson was a funny ogre of a character. Bolo Yeung was the aura king of the movie! God, I wonder if he was an inspiration for Goro from Mortal Kombat. I couldn't help but think of the 1995 film version of Goro as I watched Bolo Yeung, especially when he feeds off the audience chanting his name. Goro was like that in the 1995 film. Anyway, he was badass. A man of few words, which is good because the dubbing was comical. That's something I need to stress, the movie is not technically perfect. The dubbing is very rough at points, but hilarious. The young actor who played kid Frank Dux had a super thick French accent and I died laughing from it. Some of the characters are silly stereotypes. Some of the fighters are goofy, including one moved around like a monkey. Leah Ayres was a beautiful woman and charming, but her character was so thinly written. None of the characters are complex, but they don't have to be. Of course, I have to shout out a young Forest Whitaker. He was a total goof, but very entertaining. The movie can be very cheesy outside of the fight scenes. The foot chase in the middle of the movie is total comedy, Scooby-Doo type shit. JCVD does spam the splits and spinning kicks. But fuck man, they're beautiful! Everything came together together well! I would say it's lightning in a bottle, though I think Kickboxer is up there, among a few other JCVD films. Bloodsport still remains the best. I had a blast revisiting the film. 10/10

Skv0ra said:

Just watched the new Mortal Kombat 2 - pretty much like the first, but damn seeing Karl Urban talk normally after The Boys is a bit jarring.

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You're telling me he didn't call anyone a cunt?

Send Help 2026
I liked this one, like drag me to hell, this one started at a Office.
Another nice Sam Raimi movie.

hippy dave said:

You're telling me he didn't call anyone a cunt?

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Of course not.

I'm into wars.

Classic. The original was more noisy and fun.

Seen it like 4 times already. But it's worth it.

I think I watched it before. The chase was fun. Indifferent is my vote.

Project Hail Mary. Some of the science parts are bogus but is a very heart warming movie.

AncientBoi said:

I'm into wars.

View attachment 573138 Classic. The original was more noisy and fun.

View attachment 573139 Seen it like 4 times already. But it's worth it.

View attachment 573140 I think I watched it before. The chase was fun. Indifferent is my vote.

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Assuming you watched Extraction 1&2?

RustInPeace said:

Dragonball Evolution - This movie is infamous and for good reason. It's an abysmal manga/anime adaptation. Every single frame of this movie is disrespectful to Akira Toriyama's creation. It's a spit in the face of the voice actors who brought most of these characters to life. Fan films are better than this 20th Century Fox film. The whitewashing of characters is horrendous, and it doesn't help that the actors were so boring and incompetent. I have grown to feel bad for Justin Chatwin. He at least admits that the movie sucks and he apologizes for it. Still, the damage is done. I recognize that this movie caused Akira Toriyama to return to Dragon Ball, bringing new life to the franchise, leading to more movies and Dragon Ball Super. I see that as a Monkey's Paw scenario for people who wished for more Dragon Ball. This was actually my 2nd viewing. I first watched it in 2015 on Goku Day! I knowingly subjected myself to torture. I did it again this year, but to soften the blows, I watched the movie along with a reaction channel. That helped a lot, as they made some funny comments. They also hated the movie. Shamefully on this 2nd viewing, I laughed a bit from the movie. It was mostly because of the shitty acting from Justin Chatwin, my love of "so bad it's good" movies was coming out. I basically had a less miserable time in this 2nd viewing, but that's not enough for me to change my rating on it. This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. 0/10

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I appreciated reading this. I watched it with some college buddies way back in the day. It did feel a bit like Hollywood ran the entire concept through Google Translate a few times.

The part that lives in my head rent-free is when Goku turns back into a human, since they just reversed the original transformation footage. It was incredibly jarring, and it broke the continuity of the whole scene.

TL;DR: If I can catch your editing "trick," it's too obvious.

Creep - This film only has two actors: Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice. They both came up with the story, and Brice was the director. This was my first Duplass film, but I had known that he's an indie filmmaker. Creep is undoubtedly indie. It's about a guy who was paid to film another man and he's into some shit deeper than an amateur documentary. That sounds like a horror plot, but the movie has a strong amount of humor. I laughed quite a bit from the movie. Despite the low-budget feel, some of the jump scares worked here as opposed to mainstream horror! Duplass plays the creep and does a great job. Brice is a total goober and makes horrible decisions. But that helps the movie. There were interesting reveals and while the ending seems very straightforward, it worked very well. It was appropriate for the film. It's just two guys talking, but they managed to keep the movie engaging. It helps that it's only 77 minutes. It really doesn't overstay its welcome. It's also impressive how long scenes go before a cut. This had to be a comedy, it helps keep the movie going. It would've been boring and too unrealistic if it was just pure horror. 8/10

THX 1138 - This was George Lucas' first film. For a debut, it's pretty impressive on certain levels. It has such a striking look. The art direction is inventive and still looks great 55 years later. The sound design is very intense and helps with the overall immersion. The drab, uniform look of human characters is interesting and certainly indicates a lack of humanity. Meanwhile the robots seemingly have more emotions. I picked up on some socio-political commentary. The movie is a futuristic dystopia, the holograms represent racial disparity as they're not white, the uniformity in humans goes along with them being labor puppets. I get all that, but the movie has other story elements that don't make much sense. And then there's the ugly CGI! George Lucas not only messed up the Star Wars films, but he did the same shit to THX 1138. The CGI changes here were awful and especially ruined the flow of the third act. The writing also feels underdeveloped. The short runtime is a detriment because I think this movie would be more fleshed out if it was an hour longer or even a TV series. You don't really connect with the characters, so I can't really praise the cast much. Robert Duvall (RIP) is effective, Donald Pleasance stood out for being allowed to show some emotion. The guy who played the hologram, SRT, was the best because he gave the most emotion. The ending was supposed to be satisfying, a vision of hope, but it still felt like an abrupt ending. Funnily enough, the last shot looks like Tatooine. That's another thing, you can definitely see elements of Star Wars. A machine Duvall's character worked on looked like C3PO. Many of the sound effects were recycled for Star Wars, including the lightsaber sound. Maybe the sound effects came from Star Wars and were edited into the movie like the shitty CGI. I don't know.

What I do know is that this movie needed more depth. The ideas are there, but they don't stick to the wall strongly. This movie isn't bad, but it has further developed my overall opinion on George Lucas. The more credits he has, the more control he has, the lesser the project is. If it's a movie that has him only as a producer and features a story credit, then it's fine. More than that, there's some trouble. THX 1138 was co-written and directed by him. He had a lot of control here, and it resulted in a movie that doesn't hit as hard as it should be. Still, I have some respect for it. 6/10

Skv0ra said:

Assuming you watched Extraction 1&2?

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Not yet, but noice idea.

So last night I watched


Noice . And then



Seen it like twee times, But ok.

Seen it twice, now a third time.



So I went for the other. Deception amongst colleagues.

AncientBoi said:

Not yet, but noice idea.

So last night I watched
View attachment 573260

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I enjoyed this movie, so I want to boost it with a reply. I keep forgetting how much I like the "repeating day" storytelling device in shows and movies.

That reminds me (again), I never finished Shadow of Memories on the PS2.

Night b4 last.



Just like I remembered it, Bloody from the start, and bloody at the end.