Mini Film Review - I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007)

This film was a major shock to the system; I went in expecting a basic run-of-the-mill romantic comedy and was flabbergasted at the sheer offensive I took from the very first few moments. Here the character of "Mother Nature" (Tracey Ullman) manages to insult both women working, conscientious objectors and the entire baby boomer generation, and the character goes on to spread her view that middle aged women are past their prime, worthless and should make the way clear for the next generation. 

You may say this is one individual character, and for me not to judge a film's crudeness on the lines of her alone, however the characters are all somewhat assholes, going on to insult homosexuals ( or as they say "queers"), make holocaust jokes and employ almost all nerd clichés possible all within the course of this mere hour and a half film. The main leads on the other hand, Paul Rudd and Michelle Pfeiffer, are excellent, their talent and onscreen chemistry allowing one to forget about the terrible sub plots and base humor.

This film's presentation of youth is god-awful. The teenagers in this film are constantly annoying, making prank phone calls, being disgusting and swooning over guys to no end, even by the low standards people expect from child actors they fail to reach even that lofty bar. Their excessive use of terrible youth speak is painful to the ears, the main TV show of the latter  half of the film even being called "The Shizzle" in a desperate plea to appeal to the younger market.

Over all this film feels like 3 distinctly separate projects; one a teenage story of an annoying rebelious girl's first irrelivent crush, another a crude unfunny waste of time feeling like filler to the plot just to make the film last ninety minutes,all while spouting faux-deep messages of nature and the human desire for base pleasure, and finally a fairly cute story that was fairly engaging romantic comedy that would be a film I would actually recommend, had it been stand alone.

Rating - 

Direction - 3.5/5

Soundtrack -1/5

Plot - 2/5

Characters - 2.2/5

Overall - 8.7/20

Nicolas Cage Review - The Family Man (2000)

The year 2000's Christmas time feel-good family film takes successful Wall Street master Jack Campbell, the Cage himself, and dumps him in an alternate timeline; one where he married his young sweetheart instead of going into big business in London, became a father of two and sells tires for a living.

I do like the unexplained nature of this journey, being simply known as a "glimpse" by Cage, this name even subtly foreshadowing to Cage's initial return to reality.

As with any film of this nature he goes from loving money and wealth to loving family life and the smaller things; while clichéd it is presented fairly well, with Nic showing his hatred of his forced situation in ways only he can with his wide variety of faces and freak outs. To accompany this over used plot the finale even takes place with him and his love interest at an airport, a shallow reference to the initial life changing moment where he chose to fly to London.

The message of pursuing profit resulting in unhappiness is used to excess, beating one around the head with it multiple times, even when it seems illogical; I understand within the original time Jack feels lonely, which is indeed a problem with his life, however within the glimpse he manages to get back to his financial status with his new family, and is painted as a villain for wanting the riches, this seems a little harsh as he is still shown to care greatly about his family and his wife.

Overall a good solid Cage film, not the best yet far from the worst, not much crazy-cage but family-cage is a pleasing change, one of Mr. Cage's better roles, and a much calmer film than one is used to from this most extreme of men.

Rating - 

Direction - 2.3/5

Soundtrack -3/5

Plot - 2.5/5

Characters - 1.5/5

Overall - 9.3/20

Mini Anime Review - Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica

The perfect deconstruction of the magical girl genre, taking the tried and tested concepts of teenage witches and cutesy companions and turning it on their heads.

The macabre themes and emotions running wrought throughout this work of art add to it's depth and make it a stunning piece of animation, by far the best that is ever going to come from the magical girl genre any time soon.
The animation is fluent and very pleasing to the eye, with sections being made to seem cut out and doll like it adds an eerie quality to the show that is missing in many anime of newer seasons.
The show at time can be very depressing and is not for those with a fragile disposition, on the whole a total recommendation for any lovers of magic and tragedy.


Looks - 4.9/5
Sound - 4.1/5
Plot - 4.6/5
Characters -3.4/5 
Total - 17/20

Mini Game Review - Persona 3 (Portable)

My eventual assault on one of the most popular JRPGs of all time was long awaited; and upon it's completion I sorely regretted my unintentional evasion of this franchise. Though with it's long play length & sometimes harsh difficulties I am unsure if I would have finished a few years ago.

The plot centralising around the theme of death & the mysterious 25th hour of the day, that appears only to a chosen few Persona Users. While there are indeed some dryer spells in this part time Dating Sim & part time Dungeon Crawler the plot overall is fairly gripping, the characters being a major contributing factor to this. Despite there being bearable side characters such as the Justice Arcana girl or the Magician Arcana boy, there are highlights as that of Junpei's development from a jealous asshole to strong individual post character progression.

The soundtrack is is amazing for this & all other iterations of Persona 3, tracks such as "Burn My Dread" and "The Battle For Everyone's Souls"; these are well worth the purchase even if one were to avoid the game.


Rating:

Looks - 3.7/5

Sound -4.8/5

Plot - 3.9/5

Characters - 4/5

Gameplay - 4.9/5

Replayability - 3.3/5

Total - 24.6/30

Anime Review Overview - Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online (Aincrad Arc)

Looks - 4.5/5
Sound -4.1/5
Plot - 2.9/5
Characters - 1.5/5

Mini Anime Review - Sword Art Online (Fairy Dance Arc)

Looks - 3/5
Sound -3/5
Plot - 0.5/5

Characters - 0.5/5

Mini Anime Review - Sword Art Online II (Phantom Bullet Arc)

Looks - 4.2/5

Sound -4.5/5

Plot - 3.2/5

Characters - 3/5

Mini Anime Review - Sword Art Online II (Calibur Arc)

Looks - 2.2/5

Sound -3.7/5

Plot - 1.8/5

Characters - 1.5/5

Mini Anime Review - Sword Art Online II (Mother's Rosario)

Looks - 3.1/5

Sound -3.7/5

Plot - 2/5

Characters - 2/5

FINAL RATING

Looks - 17/25
Sound - 19/25
Plot - 10.4/25
Characters - 8.5/25
Total - 54.9/100

Mini Anime Review - Sword Art Online II (Mother Rasario Arc)

The final chunk of SAOII, and far more enjoyable than the last, being a Kirito-less arc for the majority. This time the focus is on Asuna andnew girl Yuuki ( basically she-kirito, at least she is a real girl).

The arc kinda drags, and is filled with "depression-porn";  where so many sad things happen in a small story in order to force you to pretend to care about the characters. Some elements had some effect, but the massive death scene of Yuuki surrounded by all the users felt super dumb and forced, something that could easily be done in real life with Asuna at the hospital.

Also I find it super weird Asuna being in tears in the beginning when Yuuki hasn't logged in for a few days, lots of MMO users take breaks; I find it weird, now that the show has no  murder via the game, for such things to be made such a big point of tension. 

Easily the best AFO set story, with pleasing animation & soundtracks. The new opening video is also more appropriate to the intro song that was established in the last arc which is carried over.

Rating - 

Looks - 3.1/5

Sound -3.7/5

Plot - 2/5

Characters - 2/5

Overall - 10.8/20