5 Kung Fu Panda 4

 I'm such a big fan of the first one, but ...

They made this out of a studio mandate and completely stripped the character from it. The alternative fantasy Chinese world is almost ignored now.

The new voices are miscast, and I like the actors a lot.

It's just so lazy and you can tell they moved so far away from the general heart and mindset of the original.

4 Monkey Man

 

 This movie has such a wild history and it's kind of amazing it even got released. Go look it up. It does show in some of the action scenes, but it's not derailing the movie as a whole.

The first 25 minutes are so are purposefully very frantic and busy, but even then it's too frantic and busy. Like I had a headache watching it, it needed to come down from 150% to maybe 120%. I also wish everyone would step back from the camera a few steps.

 After that, it does slow down and take the time to build it's narrative - and it's surrealism. It's very surreal, it's nice to vibe to in those first 25 minutes when you're rewatching.

If it had been any more surreal, it would lose people, but I can see why people think it treads familiar ground, because it expects the cultural identity to elevate it to something unexpected, at least for American audiences.

The ideology is basically "Working together to achieve your individual goals works better, even when that goal is righteous revenge." The idea of revenge is never shamed, which I loved. A lot of people need revenge against them because a lot of people are corrupted and initiate violence against the underclass.

The music and score is spectacular.

Ok now that I've reviewed it you logically and in a levelheaded way, good lord Dev Patel. Jesus. Fuck. Fanning myself throughout this entire thing.

3 Ernest And Celestine

 

This has been on my watch list for 12 years and I finally got to it, and it's really endearing when it's the two of them in a secluded cabin in the winter time just drawing and acting. It's two artists who were outcasts from their respective worlds finding solace in their arts together.

 

The rest of the story is a little trite, surprisingly so for a French animated film. They're usually not super afraid to not talk down to kids like this does, but I think this was based off of a book.

The animation is so fluid and dynamic, I loved watching events lead into other actions for the "action" pieces. 

2 The Zone of Interest

 I only wish the captions had been a little stronger against the light backgrounds and backdrops. It was a little difficult to see, but I do praise how the sound does a lot of the heavy lifting and the sense of dread that creeps in.

I rented this out of spite to support Glazer after he got smoke for his Oscars speech. He was right and he should say it.

1 Dune Part II

 Paul Atredies is an extremely boring character. I'm here for the visuals, but I'm also reading the first book, and damn he's dull.

Book Series: A Series of Unfortunate Events

 I can name most of the books and series I read as a child and teenager, but there are two I never revisited.

One is Percy Jackson because I oddly could not find copies of them virtually.

The other is A Series of Unfortunate Events, simply because I had forgotten about it, like most people, until I was reminded there was a show. And then it hit me like a sack of bricks, how deeply obsessed I was with a story where bad things happen to children.

It's interesting how there's like no cultural remembrance of this series and attempted franchise. It's like "Avatar" of books, and I like Avatar.

The writing style is long and meandering and wry, something I appreciated as a kid but appreciate slightly less as an adult, although there are still jokes to be found. I found myself highlighting a lot of the diatribes and being impressed at how essentially, the author wrote himself as a character in the background to the main story, which follows three orphans avoiding a bad guy (Who gets less evil and more cartoonishly evil, but still a thread) across 13 books.

I do think the overarching story and mystery that only truly starts in book 5 was basically Snicket - Daniel Handler  - fucking around and trying to confuse people and appear bigger than what it is, and wish it felt more complete. Outside of that, the only book I found with an unexpected twist that wasn't appropriately foreshadowed was The Grim Grotto.

The message intended for kids are "adults are incompetent, don't worry about it", and while they are, reading it as an adult I get "the good adults are either stuck in their ways, stupid, powerless," and the bad adults are foolish, but they aren't stupid. It's very "you have to continually look at your views and not get comfortable at the injustice you see in the world, and when you do so, you have to be brave enough to do something about it."

Avatar: The Last Airbender live action

 

 Spoilers for a 19 year old show and a 50 hour year old show.'

 

Things I like:

• Having Azula in the first season was seen as a contentious move by many, but I like it. People are annoyed that she loses her temper and wants to go out and do things, but that is a completely normal reaction for a talented, competent person trapped in a gilded cage.
  
• I feel a little less positively about seeing Ozai so early; I wish they had kept him in shadow, still pitting his children against each other, until the Agni Kai. That way, he still has some menace and we still hear and see Daniel Dae Kim. Like half the promo shots of him were him shirtless, you couldn't just deny us that.
  
• Zhao being a slimy middle manager is funny.
  
• Putting some storylines together in the same episode - Mainly, Omashu, is a smart idea. I don't know if I would have chosen Cave of Two Lovers, but it's not a huge issue.
  
• Gordon Comier as Aang is adorable. One thing this show understands is that Aang had a tendency to be funny in the original show, which is something people kind of ignore.
  
• Dallas Liu as Zuko is the best casting out of the young cast. This young man understands the assignment!
  
• Showing the Air Nomad Genocide is endearing. I also like Gyatso!

 

 

Some of the changes they make can work, they're just so beholden to the source material and hamfist references in, especially when they rely on Kanna to basically say OG Katara's opening monologue while looking at the symbols of all the Nations - which, the show says, have been isolated and fearful of each other, so why does she have this. 

Things I don't Like:

• The previous Avatars are treated as save states in a video game, where Aang can call upon them to basically do his job for him if he is near their statue. To their credit, the one Avatar who shows up to thrown down is Kyoshi.
  

For the second LA adaptation in a row, Katara and Sokka are the weakest aspects, truthfully, Katara gets the worst of it. Moving on.

It's easy to say "Oh I don't know Yue's characterization" but A) She didn't get much in the cartoon, but I do miss the fact that she was a shy girl who took some time to open up to Sokka. Also that wig is terrible.

I think they took out a lot of the conflict out from people on the same side, but they added it in bombastic fashion - I like how Bumi is angry that Aang basically abandoned his duty. Hahn (who is cute!!) and Sokka don't have animosity.

Overall, I'd watch a second season just to see the GOAT Toph and how they do The Drill.