Earthbound USA - A Kickstarter-funded “biopic” about the founders and denizens of Starman.net, the American fans of
Earthbound and the
Mother series as a whole. It’s particularly interesting to me as a fan of the game that only had a very peripheral connection to this group (who were all around my age) who formed a strong enough community in the late 90s on this website that they’re still friends today. This isn’t about the games or the making of the games, mind you, and if you want to learn more about the fan-translation of Mother 3 you’re better off with
Clyde “Tomato” Mandelin’s book about it. This is about the fans that grew up excited about this series that, back in the day, we got so little of and so many disappointments around. The one big revelation to me was that Tomato apparently got an anonymous letter claiming to be from an industry insider begging him not to release his fan-translation because it would kill the series—and it made me wonder what the hell that guy was smoking or trying to accomplish, given that the fan translation is probably the only reason people are still talking about the series at all.
The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story - A documentary about Nickelodeon, from its humble beginnings buying a Canadian show called “You Can’t Do That On Television” through 15 years of original content—or basically, through the entire period when I was aware of it as a network, because I was a key generation for their content. I recognized every single program that was discussed, either because I watched them or my younger sister did. It’s very common for a documentary to feature people gushing about the quality of something; but it’s rare that I consistently nod along with, “Yeah, you’re right, that was brilliant!” Double Dare, Hey Dude, Salute Your Shorts, Pete & Pete, Clarissa Explains It All, the original NickToons, the SNICK lineup—they had some amazing stuff, and apparently the creators had a great time making it. This comes highly recommended if you were a Nickelodeon fan back in the day.
Family Swap - The parents and kids in a family switch bodies at Christmas and must learn to see things from each others’ perspectives. A trope-tastic holiday mess with talented actors hamming up the script exactly as intended. Do you like embarrassment comedy? Because there’s plenty of that. I think my favorite bit was when they discover they’ve swapped bodies and then rattle off a half-dozen other movies where a kid ends up in an adult body or vice-versa; though the dad’s band being named “Dad Or Alive” was a close second.
A Biltmore Christmas – A screenwriter charged with writing the remake of a classic holiday romance gets to time-travel to the original set and learn why the original movie had a happy ending—and find romance along the way, of course. A Hallmark holiday movie we watched because there were Star Trek actors in it: Jonathan Frakes does a workaday job as the hotel proprietor who clearly knows more than he’s letting on; Bob Picardo was clearly on set for one day to chew scenery and have fun. This is formulaic, it’s not particularly witty or memorable, but it’s by no means bad.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - Another too-long Marvel movie, though it does bring nice closure to the stories of the various characters. (Well, mostly Rocket, but it does bring Drax, Mantis, Nebula and Gamora back around to good places, too. And I honestly don’t really care about Quill.) And Adam Warlock, woo-whee did he get the worst treatment of a “cosmic hero” character I’ve ever seen.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Another prequel to the Bay series of movies, this takes place in the mid-90s and the main character development for the series is Optimus learning to trust humans. Clearly made by someone who loves 90s hip-hop music (which drives the score of the film), this was aimed at a minority audience. Our squishy humans are both people of color; and Mirage gets to be the most prominent non-Optimus Transformer, and he spends his entire intro scene acting out “fuck the police” in a car chase scene. Airazor is the only Maximal who really gets any development (and then she dies to show us how terrible Scourge is); Rinox and Cheetor barely get lines, much less personalities. Was this a waste of my beloved Beast Wars cast? Absolutely. Were the action scenes cool? Also absolutely—and unlike anything Michael Bay ever filmed, you could actually tell what was going on!
Aquaman - My dad’s original assessment was that every VFX artist in California must have worked on this, and I definitely agree—this is a fancy cartoon action-adventure that happens to have a few live-action scenes, and it must have been amazing on the big screen. Beyond that, though…it’s okay? It’s a very formulaic, overly-long superhero romp that goes through all the usual origin story, will-they-won’t-they, hero’s journey, unlocking his true power, etc etc. Momoa is like Dwayne Johnson in that he’s using all of his good looks and charm to try to carry the movie, but honestly the “reluctant, goof-off hero” schtick they gave him gets old fast, and most of the other acting is wooden and, given the usual quality of these actors, clearly badly-directed. This is a superhero movie for fans of
Avatar, because it’s an amazing CGI spectacle but otherwise forgettable.
