Blog

The thoughts, opinions, happenings, and just plain ramblings of a seemingly boring person.

Movies

The Mandalorian and Grogu (spoilers!)

Categories Movies, Rants

It's been a while since I've had a Star Wars film to review! After having one every year or two, it's now been almost 7 years (!) since The Rise of Skywalker.

On Friday, we saw The Mandalorian and Grogu, the film spin-off from The Mandalorian TV series.

Apparently, this movie was born out of a season 4 that never happened, and to be honest, the movie does feel like 4-5 episodes of the show condensed into a movie.

I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not, but watching the movie, you could almost draw imaginary … Read more →

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (spoilers!)

Categories Life, Movies, Rants
Rise of Skywalker banner

Here we are, at the end of the Disney 'sequel trilogy'. The whole thing has been a bit of a weird and unexpected experience. A bit of history first:

I first watched the original trilogy as a child, mainly on VHS tapes. I did not see the movies in a cinema until 1997 at the age of 14, when the Special Editions were released theatrically on the 20th anniversary of the original movie.

The prequel trilogy marked my coming of age. I was 16 when Episode I came out, and 22 when Revenge of the Sith was released.

So for … Read more →

The Lego Movie 2

Categories Lego, Movies
The Lego Movie 2 poster

Today I saw a preview screening of The Lego Movie 2. It was a preview screening, because although it was released globally a few days ago, it is not actually released here in Australia until the end of March. Yes, Village Roadshow are again pulling the whole "but kids don't watch movies outside of school holidays!" timing excuse. However, these limited preview screenings in sync with the global release are a compromise that I can live with.

Getting to the actual movie: I really loved it. I had pretty high expectations, especially considering how much I loved the first … Read more →

Solo: A Star Wars Review (spoilers!)

Categories Movies, Rants

Solo posterApparently, some people actually read my Star Wars reviews, and I've been a bit slack writing this one up.

If you asked me what stories I'd like to see in the Star Wars spin-off movies, I'd have to say a Solo origin story wouldn't have been very high on my list. Combined with the reported production problems that resulted in the original directors canned in the middle of the shoot, I didn't have very high hopes for this movie.

My overall impression after seeing Solo: meh. It wasn't a bad movie by any stretch, but nothing really struck me … Read more →

The Best and Worst of 2017

Categories Gaming, Lego, Movies, Rants

Best and worst time! This is my personal review of 2017's media that I was exposed to, and the ones that I liked the most and the least.

GotG2 & LoganMovies

This year was quite a tough one to pick. There wasn't really anything that good that I can think of as being the stand-out, and by the same token, I can't remember anything that I saw that was really that bad. Nevertheless:

Best Movie: Two-way tie between Logan and Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

Guardians 2 gave me more of what I loved about the first: space, sci-fi, 80s, humour, … Read more →

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (spoilers!)

Categories Geekery, Movies, Rants

Star Wars: The Last JediIt's that time of year, again! No, I'm not talking about my usual 'Best and Worst', 'Tweets for 20xx', or 'Year in Review' posts. I'm talking about the annual Star Wars movie in this new era of Disney Star Wars. Being the second 'trilogy' movie, and the successor to my well-received The Force Awakens, I did have reasonable expectations for this movie.

As usual, be warned that there are SPOILERS AHEAD!

I don't totally share the critical acclaim this movie is getting. It's a good movie, not a great one. I was pretty frustrated after my first viewing, … Read more →

The Best and Worst of 2016

Categories Gaming, Movies, Rants

Geez, it's already that time of year again! My personal review of 2016's media that I was exposed to, and the ones that I liked the most, and the ones that I liked the least. As a result of having a small child, and also being unwell for a lot of this year, I haven't really seen/played as much as I would have liked. There are still a lot of movies that I want to see (including most of the December releases), so take this list with a grain of salt.

Movies

This year I saw a lot of very … Read more →

Star Wars: Rogue One (spoilers!)

Categories Geekery, Movies

It's another year, and another Star Wars movie in this post-Lucas Disney era. I have to admit, when it was announced I was quite apprehensive about these 'standalone' movies. This year it is Rogue One, the story of how the Rebellion managed to get their hands on the Death Star plans.

Like last year's Force Awakens review, I don't think I can properly put my thoughts down without containing spoilers, so you have been warned: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Let's start with the good. I liked the overall story, and I loved how it explained how the rebels got the … Read more →

Captain America: Civil War Musings

Categories Movies

The first half of Captain America: Civil War almost ruined the whole movie for me. All the action scenes were shaky-cam and super fast cuts, which I absolutely despise. Strangely though, the second half's action wasn't nearly as bad, and was actually very enjoyable to watch.

It's like the directors (the Russo Bros) each took half of the movie and shot it by themselves, and then had a different editor for their half too.

Spidey has his best film representation. His brief 20 mins or so in the movie is better than the previous 5 movies combined.… Read more →

The Best and Worst of 2015

Categories Gaming, Movies, Rants

That time of year again! My personal review of 2015's media that I was exposed to, and the ones that I liked the most, and the ones that I liked the least. (Note that other than Star Wars, I haven't seen many of the other December movies).

Movies

The Force Awakens

Best Movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Easy choice. After so much hype and expectation, this movie was under a lot of pressure to deliver, and I thought they did a remarkably stellar job. Not perfect, but I really couldn't have asked for much more from this new era of … Read more →