Josh Gad on Instagram: “10,000 people retweeted my message to #VOTE and in return I vowed to recap the Star Wars Franchise as Olaf. Here is Part 1: The Prequels!…”

Josh Gad is the voice of Olaf in the Frozen movies ...

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CG3KJr-HIV6/?utm_source=ig_embed

Why Superheroes are like Classic Monsters

Movies: The Vast of the Night

I saw this for the second time.  For a low budget science fiction film, it is really good.

http://letsallgotothemovie.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-vast-of-night.html

What's inside the Millennium Falcon? (Star Wars)

More than you ever wanted to know about The Millenium Falcon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5-WI7XN6uo

Contrary to what is presented in the video, I would expect redundant systems in any kind of spacecraft.  Nothing is mentioned of heat shielding for re-entry, although if you could slow a craft to a near stop then you wouldn't need it.

Even if we could create and store antimatter, which would be the most compact fuel possible, it would still take an enormous amount of fuel to continuously accelerate a craft all the way to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.  Reaching anywhere near the speed of light takes several times more mass of antimatter than the mass of the ship.

Cats on HBO

Started watching the movie "Cats" on HBO Max. I'm 26 minutes into it. It was voted by some as the worst movie of last year. There were some problems with the CGI in the original release that was fixed in a later update.

As long as you aren't expecting much in the way of plot, which barely exists in this film, the movie consists almost entirely of energetic singing and dancing. As such it is a visual spectacle. If this were on stage it would seem brilliant, which is why "Cats" was one of the most successful stage musicals ever made, but it is not exactly what you would expect to see in a movie.

I like what I have seen so far, but I'm not sure if another 60 minutes of this will maintain my interest.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

CLEOPATRA and the Gal Gadot Casting Backlash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsA0JDsv1gQ

Fatman Trailer #1 (2020)

This is like the weirdest movie ever.  It sort of falls under the category of, "Is nothing sacred?"  

Nine Days Trailer #1 (2021) | Movieclips Trailers

The premise seems pretty questionable to me.  It is possible that this will actually be a beautiful movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LzKeEDael0

The Vast of the Night

The Vast of the Night was released to drive-in theaters and on Amazon Prime in May of this year.

When I was reviewing the movie "The Signal", I said that the trouble with low budget science fiction movies is that these types of films might have one good idea, whereas a big-budget movie like "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" is loaded with many good ideas. The Signal kept you in suspense for the whole film, making you think that this story was leading up to something wonderful. There was a payoff in the end, but that payoff was so short that if you had closed your eyes for just a couple of seconds then you would have missed it. Literally. Everything I said about "The Signal" is also true for "The Vast of the Night", except the ending is a little longer. However, both movies are an exercise in prolonged tension to arrive at similar endings. The Vast of the Night feels like a master class in low budget filmmaking. It does a great job with its long camera shots and its unknown actors who give stellar performances. The movie starts by showing an old fashioned television screen like it is playing an episode of the old Twilight Zone. The camera zooms into the screen and now we are following characters in a 1950's small New Mexico town on the night of a high school basketball game. It spends a long 20 minutes introducing its settings and characters, after which the local switchboard operator starts noticing weird things happening. She teams up with her friend, a disk jockey at a one-man radio station to investigate what is going on. Many of the scenes drag on a bit, mostly with conversation. But there is a frantic tension that builds toward the conclusion. Fortunately, the actors really sell this story. We get a sense that these are ordinary people caught up in something big that they don't understand. The minimalist style of this film could be called experimental, but for 85 minutes it works really well. Rating: B+. A reviewer on youtube gave the film an A-. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HEcnacyI_8

Sonic The Hedgehog

The first trailer for Sonic The Hedgehog sparked an internet backlash because many people thought that the Sonic character looked kind of creepy.  The production company responded to the backlash by redoing the animation, and the final result looks fairly good.  I noticed some very minor imperfections in the CGI, but nothing too distracting.

Because of the initial backlash, some of the critics expressed great surprise by saying that the movie is actually good.  This is not what they were expecting.  

Sonic is mostly a kid's film that is not intellectually deep at all, but it has enough jokes that connect and fun stuff to make it a good time.  Jim Carrey plays Dr. Robotnik.  He is essentially playing a cartoon villain, which he plays way over the top, so much so that I found him annoying, but Jim Carrey is also the funniest when he is way over the top.  I was laughing out loud several times, which is a good thing.  We get Jim Carrey at his full nuttiness, although it would have been better if he were more restrained.

There is a bar fight scene in the middle of the movie that is mostly gratuitous because it feels like filler.  However, like the rest of the movie, it is mildly amusing.

If we compare Sonic to another videogame adaptation, Pokemon Detective Pikachu, the story is much more coherent and less of a mess.

Rating:  B.