New In Review: Space Jam: A New Legacy

Space Jam: A New Legacy is the sequel/reboot of the original 1996 film and stars LeBron James as himself and Cedric Joe as his fictional son Dom. It also stars Don Cheadle, Sonequa Martin-Green and features the voices of Jeff Bergman, Eric Bauza, Bob Bergen, Candi Milo, Fred Tatasciore, Gabriel Iglesias and Zendaya as the Looney Tunes.

I’d like to discuss the topic of “designed by committee”, which is when a project is overseen by so many different people each with their own wants and agendas that the finished result just looks like a messy hodgepodge. Because this movie feels like one of the clearest examples of exactly that; an over-stuffed mess without any vision and crammed with what looks like corporate mandated advertisements and decisions.

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New In Review: When the Sparrow Falls

When the Sparrow Falls is a sci-fi, dystopia novel and the debut novel of playwright and critical blogger Neil Sharpson, better known within the internet community as The Unshaved Mouse.

Set in future where the vast majority of the world has surrendered any sense of self-governance and left that in the metaphorical hands of super-advanced Artificial Intelligences, humanity no longer feels the need to remain human and have uploaded their minds into the web. In the remnants of the former Azerbaijan, the last holdout of pure humanity remains, The Caspian Republic. A land free of the domination of the A. I.s and the “machines” masquerading as humans. And subsequently a land of paranoia, desperation, starvation and conspiracies, where the wrong word can get you killed, or worse.

When noted propagandist Paulo Xirau dies and is discovered to be a “machine”, Nikolai South, an agent for the State Security, is tasked with escorting Xirau’s wife Lily, an A. I. herself, to identify her husband’s remains. South, who for decades has dodged ambition and promotion, now finds himself entangled in a web of dark secrets and murder. He must deal with the underhanded ruthlessness of the Party Security, the disconcerting fact that Lily resembles his late wife, and come face-to-face with the Republic’s sins and his own.

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New In Review: Batman The Long Halloween Part 1

Batman The Long Halloween Part 1 is the latest direct-to-video animated film from Warner Bros. and is adapted from the graphic novel of the same name by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. Directed by Chris Palmer it stars Jensen Ackles as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Josh Duhamel as Harvey Dent, Billy Burke as Jim Gordon, Titus Welliver as Carmine Falcone, Julie Nathanson as Gilda Dent, Jack Quaid as Alberto Falcone, David Dastmalchian as the Calendar Man and the late Naya Rivera as Selina Kyle/Catwoman. The film also features a few reprisals with Alastair Duncan as Alfred, Fred Tatasciore as Solomon Grundy and Troy Baker as the Joker.

DC’s animated films are something of a mixed bag, on the one hand, their attempts at being more “mature” than the average cartoon can swing too heavily into the darker end of things and leave the film so bleak that there’s little chance of rewatching. Then there’s the attempts at drawing in viewers through star power, usually by casting television stars or veteran film actors in the lead roles, even if they have little to no voice-over experience and the performance sounds rough and amateurish because of it. And that’s not even getting into the fact these films have almost exclusively focused on Batman and thus other characters and their stories are shoved aside.

But on the other hand, when done right the animated films can stand out in ways their live-action counterparts can’t and highlight the characters in their own unique way. Thankfully, this film is an example of the latter.

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New In Review: Luca

Luca is the latest animated film from Pixar and the second to be released through the Disney+ streaming service. It was directed by Enrico Casarosa and features the voice talents of Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Burnam, Marco Barricelli, Saverio Raimondo, Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan.

Off the coast of the fictional Liguria village of Portorosso, a young sea monster by the name of Luca (Tremblay) dreams of visiting the surface, when a chance encounter with another more outgoing sea monster Alberto (Grazer) forces him out of his comfort zone and onto dry land. There the two engage in wacky hijinks, befriend the spunky Giulia (Berman) and seek independence (mostly through acquiring a vespa) while Luca’s parents try to keep him away from the surface.

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New In Review: In the Heights

In the Heights was directed by John M. Chu and is the film adaptation of the Broadway musical by Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda who also produced and adapted it for the screen. It stars Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera, Daphne Ruin-Vega, Gregory Diaz IV, Olga Merediz and Jimmy Smitts. Like the play it follows the lives and dreams of the community of the barrio in Washington Heights as they struggle through financial problems, racial insecurity, relationship tensions and a sweltering heat wave.

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Review and Analysis: Gargoyles Metamorphosis

We enter episode 2 of Season 2 with a “Previously On…” recapping the events of “Her Brother’s Keeper.” Detailing Elisa’s brother Derek and his concern over what he believes is an obsession on her part over Xanatos, him quitting the police force to work as Xanatos’ personal pilot and bodyguard, and Elisa admitting that Derek does need to live his own life but she still knows Xanatos is bad news.

The episode begins properly down in the lowly streets of New York City where we see several homeless gathering around, trying to keep warm. One young woman (Kath Soucie) is explaining to a shadowy figure that her situation is just a temporary setback and she expects to be back on her feet soon enough. The figure voiced by…Tim Curry?!

*“Gah! How many evil people are in this series anyway?!*

*“Less than you think, more than you can imagine!”*

Brrr. Anyway the stranger explains that he’s in need of a temporary assistant and he’s more than willing to help her out, all while wearing an expression usually reserved for members on the Family Watchdog list.

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New In Review: Mortal Kombat

So I mentioned back in my Sonic the Hedgehog review that there’s a long-held belief that movies based on video games generally suck, and there is credence to this as seen in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, the sequel to the surprise 1995 hit Mortal Kombat. Since then adaptations of the violent, yet popular fighting game series have had a huge hill to climb up. And not just battling the preconceptions on video game movies but from all the controversies in the game’s franchise itself. Whether it be the long history the series has with gore and violence, the inconsistencies in the last few games’ storytelling and lore or NetherRealm Studio’s harsh work schedule and drive to make the game’s violence even more hardcore which led to developers being diagnosed with PTSD.

But how does this movie compare? Well….Spoilers are to follow.

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New In Review: Godzilla vs. Kong

Godzilla vs. Kong is the fourth film in Warner Bros. MonsterVerse and is directed by Adam Wingard. It stars Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Julian Dennison, Shun Oguri, Eiza González, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir and Kaylee Hottle.

The following review will contain Spoilers for the film.

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New In Review: Dota: Dragon’s Blood

Dota: Dragon’s Blood is an American animated series on Netflix and animated by Studio Mir, it’s based on Valve’s Defense of the Ancients series. It features the voice talents of Yuri Lowenthal, Laura Pulver, Troy Baker, Alix Wilton Regan, Freya Tingley, Kari Wahlgren, Josh Keaton Dee Bradley, JB Blanc, Anson Mount and Tony Todd.

Now I know very little about Valve’s series, which as I discovered began as a mod to the Warcraft series, so instead of focusing on whether the show was an accurate representation of the games I instead decided to see if the show could be an engaging fantasy story. The end result was…mixed.

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Fulfilling the need for community.

Today marks the one year anniversary of the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and there’s a lot I, like many others, didn’t expect when it came to this game. I certainly didn’t expect to feel the need to play this everyday after I got it. I didn’t expect it to become as of this writing, the second best-selling game on the Switch and the second-best selling game of all time in Japan. I never thought I would own a game from the Animal Crossing series and I certainly didn’t expect to love playing this as much as I have.

Of course, no expected that we’d be stuck in a world-wide lockdown due to a global pandemic either. But success is often measured by opportunity and that’s where this game shines. Because for over a year it’s given players opportunities they’d never have dreamed of.

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