Author: Ruth

It was exciting to sit down in the movie theater as the famous Super Mario brothers came to the screen. Even Mario and Luigi themselves came to watch the film! (The cosplay was much appreciated by the entire audience.). It had been a while since I’d been able to go PG, family friendly film, so it was a nice change of pace to be surrounded by kids jumping in and out of their seats. The movie theater was filled with laughs and giggles, oohs and aaahs, and people singing along every time a familiar tune made its way into the music score.

One of the most commendable aspects of the film is how much it pulls from the extensive hold of source material. It seemed as though the entire music track was littered with video game music easter eggs. Though the most powerful and objectively hilarious piece of music was an original ballad that Bowser sings while tickling the ivories, a song titled “Peaches”. It’s an incredible song that describes his love for Princess Peach. Jack Black, who voices Bowser, actually wrote the song himself, which makes it all the more sweeter. And in typical Jack Black form, the song is also hilarious. I could listen to it on repeat for hours.

Obviously music isn’t the only highlighted feature of the film, there are probably hundreds of easter eggs scattered throughout. In fact, there was one particular movie goer who was excitedly pointing them out every time one appeared. And thankfully, because I stayed seated until the credits were over, I witnessed, arguably, the cutest easter egg of all! Though I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen the film yet. Just make sure to stay for the entire movie! There’s clearly a lot of depth to this film that more experienced players than me will pick up on immediately and appreciate.

However, I do have one complaint. The script writing of this film, particularly in the beginning, wasn’t well done. It seemed as though the writers needed to get through the introductory content as quickly as possible and it shows.  I realize that the target audience of the film is geared more towards children than adults, but that doesn’t excuse lazy writing. Thankfully, the script only improves, the longer the movie goes on.

If you’re a fan of the Super Mario Bros. world or looking for a fun film to take the kids to, this is definitely the movie for you.

I’m relatively new to the world of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). I’ve only been playing for about a year, but I’m completely in love with the game. It’s such a complex, rich world of fantasy, filled with fantastical beasts and monsters, flamboyant spells, magical weapons, and so much more. Most importantly, it’s a great way to meet new friends and grow confidence in yourself as both a RPG player as well as a person.  D&D has grown so much in the last decade and I was so excited to see the trailer for Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. After watching it in theaters with my D&D friend group, I can happily say that it didn’t disappoint.

Firstly, the film is packed with D&D staples as far as magical items and creatures are concerned. If you’ve watched the trailer, you’ve already seen one of the most popular monsters included in the world of D&D: the Owlbear. I can’t tell you how excited I was to see this creature brought to life on screen. There were also staples such as the Hither Dither staff (a staff of teleportation), Bigby’s Hand (a famous spell that materializes a giant hand that the caster can punch and grapple an enemy with, among other things), and the best staple of them all, the loveable dragon known as Themberchaud.

Themberchaud has a deep history in the realm of D&D and I won’t get into that history for the sake of whoever is reading this, because this review would get rather long. However, the inclusion of this particular chunky dragon is a testament to how much research, thought, and love was put into this film. It’s clear that the directors weren’t just piling in popular D&D material, they were picking and choosing the best elements throughout the world of D&D that made sense with the story they were trying to tell.

Another aspect I loved about the film was how they took the rules of D&D and sprinkled them into the film, poking fun at the game itself at times. For example, there’s a certain scene where the spell Speak With Dead is cast. This spell allows the caster to ask a corpse up to five questions. The film takes full advantage of the limits of this spell, and a character even questions the reasoning of only being allowed to ask five questions.

It’s a wonderful film overall, and I’d recommend it to anyone who is even remotely interested in the world of D&D. Who knows! You might just buy a set of dice and start playing!

The Jesus Revolution film is based on one of the greatest religious awakenings in American history. It began in California during the 1960’s and quickly spread across the globe, embracing the counter culture of the youth at the time and combining it with the message of Christianity. I was familiar with the rise of Hippie culture and their advocation for nonviolence; the call  for “making love, not war”, but I had no idea that the movement had married itself into Christianity.

Obviously, this film is centered around the message of Christianity, however, it doesn’t shy away of representing the Christian faith in its many forms; some more ugly that others. This was an aspect of the film that I greatly appreciated.  Religion is a complex, faceted entity, where one individuals wrong may be another’s right and this film portrayed this very well.

Jesus Revolution follows a young man by the name of Greg Laurie on a journey through his youth. It explores the ups and downs of adolescence as Greg tries to find “truth”, in other words, what’s real, what will stay, and where he can find belonging. He ends up finding this belonging in Calvary Church, though he soon realizes that this new found home is far from perfect.

Throughout the film there is a reoccurring presence of a character by the name of Josiah; a New York Times journalist who chronicles the Jesus Revolution  as it spreads throughout California and beyond. In reality, there was an article published in the New York Times. I was curious as to what the article spoke about in regards to the movement and have copied a section of the article down below as well as the hyperlink to the full reading for anyone who’s curious. I found it to be a very energetic and entertaining read.

I’d recommend  Jesus Revolution to anyone who is curious about the merge of Hippie culture and Christianity, or anyone who’s curious about religion in general.

“The Jesus revolution rejects not only the material values of conventional America but the prevailing wisdom of American theology. Success often means an impersonal and despiritualized life that increasingly finds release in sexploration, status, alcohol and conspicuous consumption. Christianity — or at least the brand of it preached in prestige seminaries, pulpits and church offices over recent decades — has emphasized an immanent God of nature and social movement, not the new movement’s transcendental, personal God who comes to earth in the person of Jesus, in the lives of individuals, in miracles (see box, page 60). The Jesus revolution, in short, is one that denies the virtues of the Secular City and heaps scorn on the message that God was ever dead.”

https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,905202-1,00.html

Jurassic Park, look out! You’ve got some competition with this new dinosaur sci-fi thriller!

All joking aside, I was very impressed with this film. I felt that the premise was very clever in that the directors were introducing us to a world that we are all very familiar and not familiar with at the same time; our planet Earth, 65 million years ago. The main character of this film, Mills (played by Adam Driver), is a humanoid pilot whose ship is shot down by an uncharted asteroid field, which ultimately becomes the main villain of this story as  Mills unfortunately crashed on earth a few days before the dinosaurs met their doom in a blaze of fire, ash, and darkness.

What’s great about this film is not just the character development between Mills and Koa (a young passenger on board his ship played by Ariana Greenblatt), the CGI, or the story line. All of these elements were fantastic, but the real star was the music score of this film. With Chris Bacon at the helm as well as Danny Elfman and Gad Emile Zeitune, this score brought forth all the must haves of a good thriller. Now, I have to admit, it’s not that hard to scare me. I jump quite easily and I’ve only watched one horror film in my life. 65 is NOT a horror film, it’s a sci-fi thriller, and yet I must have been jump scared at least fifteen times during the movie. I’ve never been so exhausted from going to the theater. The way that the music score was constructed was just masterful at building up anticipation and then releasing it at the most unexpected times. I’ve noticed that thrillers sometimes have a tendency to rely on the music score too much, so much so that the tremoring of an orchestra is all you can focus on during a scene as you watch a character breath heavily and wide-eyed for what seems like eternity until the scare finally happens. 65 is not one of those films. The music is a valuable aid, but not the main focal point. The characters, scenery, and music work in harmony to create these suspenseful moments. You aren’t waiting for a scare, the scare takes you by surprise.

65 is a very well done film and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of dinosaurs, wholesome father-daughter relationships, or a good old jump scare!

I really would have liked to give the newest installment of Ant-Man a stellar review. However, I have to say that Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania was a disappointment. I hadn’t expected much from the film to begin with, given the quality of Marvel’s most recent outputs (specifically Thor: Love and Thunder). It seems as though Marvel has become so comfortable in the cushion of its own fanbase that the quality of the story they are portraying has been thrown to the wayside in exchange for clichéd dialogue and visual effects.

But don’t get me wrong, I am most definitely  still a part of that fanbase. Marvel’s brought so much joy to so many people around the world. And I’m not about to stop going to the theaters for Marvel just because of a few subpar films.

That, of course, brings us back to the subpar film at hand: Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. There might have been a page or two of dialogue throughout the movie that didn’t teeter on the edge of overused. There was no character development concerning Scott Lang or Hope Pym (Ant-Man and  The Wasp respectively) and  it seemed that Cassie Lang’s only real role in the film was to act as leverage for the villain, Kang the Conqueror. However, the most disappointing aspect of the film was that there  was very little world building done in the way of exploring and explaining the Quantum realm. The film just felt very bloated, as if it were taking on more than it could chew in two hours of run time.

WARNING: spoilers ahead!

The only redeeming quality of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania I’d say, would be  two minor characters that barely made an appearance. I never knew how much I needed Darren Cross as M.O.D.O.K. until he revealed himself to Scott Lang, fully confident in the proportions of his new body. M.O.D.O.K. might have only had fifteen minutes of screen time at the most, but he stole the show with his comedic, over the top twists in character. He arguably might have had the most character development out of anyone. The second character to liven up the film was some sort of gelatinous creature whose goop gave Scott Lang and his entourage the convenient ability to understand any language spoken to them by the hundreds of different creatures living in the Quantum realm. The creature was just so chaotically random that you couldn’t help but fall in love with it.

You can always tell the difference between a good film and a bad one in the way you experience it in the theater. Either you’re fully engrossed in the screen in front of you and the theater itself disappears…..Or you’re fully aware of the fellow audience members munching on popcorn and snacks and how badly you have to go to the bathroom.

It was the latter for me this time around.

I arrived very early to the theater to watch this film. It was a 6:45 showing and I’d finished dinner early, so I strolled into the auditorium to take my pick of the seats and hunkered down to wait. It was really a blessing in disguise to have arrived so early, as I got to witness the entrance of my fellow audience members. Couple after couple meandered into the room, all hand in hand, all whispering softly as they carefully chose their seats. All of their heads, peeking above the back of the chairs, were covered in variations of white and gray. Seeing all of these older couples together made me smile, it was such a quiet, sweet sort of beauty.

I describe this to you, because the film mirrored that quiet sweetness that I witnessed from the couples in the movie theater. Obviously, Living isn’t an action film nor is it a romance. It’s simply about an older man named Mr. Williams and what he did with his life after realizing that it would end far sooner than he’d imagined. The premise itself sounds cliché even as I write it, but the film didn’t make a dramatic moment of the whole event. Instead, Williams decided that how he lived from that moment on would change. If he was going to die, he wanted to know what it was like to live joyfully, and there was no one better to teach him how to accomplish that than a woman from his workplace by the name of Miss Margaret Harris. Miss Harris was the key to joyfulness for Mr. William.

In many ways, the title of the film doesn’t just describe the plot, but also the way the movie is put together. Our lives aren’t an endless string of events. There are periods of rest; not everything is exciting, there are many moments of banality. The film replicates this with many scenes were there isn’t any dialogue at all, just the soft instrumental soundtrack playing along as the camera pans across the characters simply sitting. At times, these static moments don’t even involve a character.

I greatly appreciated how this film replicates a more  realistic aspects of the lives we lead. It’s slow and soft; a bit boring at times and a bit sad at others.

Overall, I would recommend it to anyone who’s in the mood for something a little more real.