Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – JenEric Movie Review

How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2023 film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Story

I love series. Most of the books I write are series. This didn’t have any resolution for Miles and that made it feel like half a story and not a full movie on its own. Honestly, for a movie called Spider-man he’s the character who get the 4th amount of story after the Spider-verse, Gwen, and Spot. I loved Gwen’s story, but it felt half-baked.

The movie was hurt by having way too much exposition.

The concept of the Spider-Verse and “cannon events” took so much time to get to a point that all the other stories felt rushed.

Score: 0

Characters

The arc for Miles was interesting. I like that he’s more confident and just because the others arrive in his life again, he doesn’t revert to a useless child. He’s confident in his abilities, his morals, and manages to outwit the villains. His personal story of trying to tell his parents and coming to terms with being the only spider-man in his world is barely explored. Hopefully in the next movie.

There was a nice heartfelt moment for Gwen and I really felt for her and loved the parallels between hers and Miles’s story. While his feels lost in the movie, hers feels rushed.

Vampire-angst Spidey is either the dumbest anti-hero or a terrifying villain. We’ll see.

Spider-punk deserves his own series and feels like one of the only reasons the plot moves past all the exposition in the 2/3rds mark.

Score: 1

Dialogue

The dialogue, outside the exposition, is quippy and fun. Lots of great lines and the characters really play off each other well. Watching Gwen and Miles talk while web swinging was wonderful. Unfortunately, they didn’t use that style with the bigger bits of exposition.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

I’m going to be nit-picky here and say that the animation isn’t as good as the first one. The first had clear crisp animation with amazing visuals. This one tried to cut corners by forcing our eyes with blurry backgrounds. It’s still absolutely gorgeous but instead of enhancing the scenes it often distracted from them. The pastel world of Gwen had both kids asking why her hair kept changing colours.

The music was excellent and made a great bridge between the first and second.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The action was great and both kids enjoyed it. The rest of the family found it fun. I’m familiar with the multi-verse concept (BECAUSE I WATCHED THE FIRST MOVIE) so I found the excessive explanations… well, excessive.

Score: 0.5

Overall

It’s great to catch up with old friends. The characters are there, but their story is rushed for extra explanations and world building. The movie is beautiful and fun but isn’t done, and suffers from not giving the audience any resolution.

Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5

The Suns of War – Chapter 9 (Serial Story)


Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12


Chapter 9: A Bomb, more Fanatics, and some Rest

The bomb embedded in the ship was giving off so much energy that it was super-charging the engines. 

“Once we open the energy collectors, we can syphon off the energy. That should slow us down,” Zuri explained again.

Bart’s bushy eyebrows furrowed and he asked, “Where are we going to put all that energy?”

It was Alexandre who replied, “Our new energy cells can hold a hundred and fifty percent of maximum. The rest we’ll be using to drop out of FTL without exploding.”

Bart swallowed hard and just nodded.

It wasn’t long before they had modified the ship and were ready to try. 

“Captain, on your mark,” Zuri said.

Trying not to think about what would happen if they had missed a valve or a bolt, Nessa said, “Bart, prepare for some fancy flying. When we drop out, we’ll be right in the middle of the Ares system and I don’t think they’ll be too happy to see a Martian ship arriving. Okay, Zuri, do it.”

Everyone braced for impact, but other than a worrisome humming noise, not much happened other than the view from the monitors changing.

Once they’d successfully dropped out of FTL, however, things got bumpy. They were still going extremely fast and Ares was one giant asteroid field.

Bart navigated them out of the field and then howled in frustration and anger. 

Nessa knew what it felt like to see your homeworld reduced to rubble and let the man grieve. She asked the rest of the bridge crew, “Damage report?” 

Zuri looked frustrated as she replied, “Working on it captain, but our sensors were damaged, and that’s slowing things down.”

Frowning, Nessa said, “Blue-Sun has to be stopped. We need to find Arthur. From what the Avalonians said, he has the power to stop them.”

“Sir, I’ve been reading through the massive amount of information they gave us on Arthur and I think I found something that will help.” Em looked hopeful.

“Go ahead.”

“It’s said that Arthur can block the connection between the Sun Speakers and their gods. He was also a powerful Sun Speaker himself so he has those powers. It says that the best way to identify Arthur is when he uses his powers.”

Still heartbroken at seeing his homeworld destroyed, Bart asked in a teary voice, “What powers? What can stand up to this level of destruction?”

Em sighed and said, “The text is half metaphors and all flowery language. It’s hard to decipher. Other than blocking the Sun Speakers, there’s something about leading the half-living into battle, and understanding the secrets of war. I really d—” Alarms cut him off and he tapped at his console before saying, “There are four Myrddin ships and they’re hailing us.”

The near mechanical voices boomed over the ships coms, “Myrddin searches for Arthur.”

“Put me on,” Nessa said and once Em did, she said, “Myrddin ships. We are the Galahad and we also search for Arthur.” When they didn’t respond, she asked, “How will you recognize him and what do you plan to do with him?”

It seemed like they weren’t going to answer until the voice said, “We will recognize him by DNA and we shall follow him into the war to end all wars. Why do you search for him?”

Nessa didn’t want to mention Avalon so she settled for a half truth, “We hope he can help against the meaningless destruction of Blue-Sun.”

“They are serpents, which must be destroyed. It is agreed.” The coms cut off and everyone stared at the screen in confusion.

After a moment, Em said, “They’ve sent us a data packet with what looks like medical information.”

Peri, who’d been sitting at a spare station, perked up and said, “Send it to medbay and I’ll look it over.”

Zuri, who seemed to have missed everything, looked up and said, “Looks like sensors, shields, cloak, weapons, FTL engines, and plasma collectors all sustained severe damage.”

“Is that it?” Alexandre said, and Nessa could swear the large lizardman was teasing Zuri.

Blushing, Zuri said, “It’ll take a day and a half to repair.”

Nessa nodded and gestured for her to go ahead. Both her and Alexandre got up and headed to wherever they needed to repair things. “We’ll set up two shifts. Bart and Tanya, you go for a rest, Em and I will take first duty.” When the other two were gone, Nessa told Em to go help the engineers. 

The bridge was so quiet with everyone gone, Nessa could almost believe that she was back as a commander in the Martian military. “Has it really only been a few days?” she asked herself.

She monitored communications, but the usually active channels were quiet. With at least two of the three major powers destroyed, there weren’t many people left.

The shift went on quietly until Bart came to relieve her of duty.

“How are you holding up?” she asked.

“I’m angry and sad, but mostly I feel numb. Those bastards took our homes without breaking a sweat.”

She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and he pulled her into a hug. She said, “I understand.”

“Bah, enough touchy-feely stuff. Get some sleep.”

Her quarters were untouched, but felt wrong, like a relic from another time. She ate a quick meal and then lay down for sleep. She didn’t expect it would be easy, but she closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

She was started out of a dream about chasing ghosts through a maze by Bart over the coms, “Captain, Blue-Sun is broadcasting on all channels that they found Arthur and he’s going to lead them into battle against the rebel suns. We’re reading a massive fleet of Myrddin on their way to the Blue-Sun location.”

Later, on the bridge, Nessa looked around at the assembled crew and said, “It’s probably a trap, but if there’s a chance they found Arthur, we need to make sure he isn’t being used by them.”

“The ship’s ready to go,” Zuri said.

“Let’s go rescue King Arthur Pendragon, Speaker of the Rebel Sun, Ruler of Old Earth and the three kingdoms of War.”

Read Chapter 10 (October 2023)


While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:

Week 6 – Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo!

This week is a new one for us, Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo! the 2020 film. I wanted a fun Scooby-Doo movie, and what better month to set it in than October? There are also two brand-new activities that I haven’t done before, so I’m excited to test them out!

Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (I hope this works…please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
handprintWatch moviemonster maskFlexghosts

Summary of the week

Daily details:

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano, learning guitar

Crochet

The project he is working on (currently he is making himself a poncho)

Basic Information

We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.

Printing words

Download material

Counting objects/math-type activities

Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –(in download material)

Storytime

Activity

Draw a monster mask (web templates) – Dragon used this one
Spooky handprint: video and instructions
Cheesecloth ghosts: link to instructions

Next week: Kiki’s Delivery Service

Week 4 – Nimona Results

I was a little nervous about this week. I hadn’t watched the French version of this movie before, plus Pegasus had said that he didn”t like any of the previous activities on Saturday (but then he did on Sunday, so…) Anyways, the week went very well.

Dance

I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted.

Music

This week, we’ve been focussing mostly on him practising his scales on the piano. He needs to build up his finger strength, especially in his baby fingers, before my mom can teach him properly. He also needs to be more familiar with the names of the keys, which I continued teaching him, both forward and backward. (repeated from last week)

Crochet

I helped him do several blocks of stitches… probably about 4 inches. He’s excited to be able to wear it, but there’s still so much left to do.

Basic Information

We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). He sang along unprompted.

Printing words

He has been improving slowly. I like that I don’t have to fight him to get him to do it.

Counting objects/math-type activities

He wanted me to move the pencil, but was willing to try a different direction for the movement. He needs work on remembering that sept comes after six.

Storytime

We read the mini French books during the week.

Activity

Sewing a button – this was the activity he was most excited about, which I found strange until he mentioned that they use Dragon’s sewn button as a buzzer in their games. So now he has one too. He did very well. (I held the button so that he wouldn’t stab himself.)

Play charades – I was a little concerned about this one, because he can’t read yet. But I had a thought the night before and it worked perfectly. I pulled up a random animal generator on my phone that did 8 animals at a time. I told him to scroll through them until he found one that he knew, and then act it out. He keeps asking to do it again, so I’m going to call this one a win, especially once he caught on that he couldn’t switch his animal to be whatever I said first lol

Nature walk – We did this on Friday, which was a PD Day, so Dragon accompanied us. She also let Pegasus borrow her camera, which worked well. The only problem was that he was more interested in looking around and walking than in taking pictures. I did manage to convince him to take a couple. We took a very similar route to the one I did for Dragon, but I had a little surprise for them, leading them onto Carlington Hill. The climb was worth it.

Pegasus’s pictures:

What if Carter had Instagram?

Crushing It

That was the question I asked myself as I watched a fun instagram for a contemporary romance. This is the result, and I’m super proud of it.

If Instagram had existed in 2003, this is what Carter would’ve posted during the first portion of the book Crushing It:

Cover art by @pinkpiggy93 on Tumblr and @flowerraven93 on Instagram

Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!

Physical from Canadian indie bookstoresphysical from Indigo, electronic version

The Babysitter – JenEric Movie Review

How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2017 film The Babysitter.

Story

I like the reversal of the slasher story, making the group of teens the villains and the bullied kid the hero. I also like that despite that reversal, he still takes them out one by one.

Score: 1

Characters

I liked most of the characters. The main was a little whiny and his parents just weird. The villains were pretty bland except for the babysitter and the jock.

The talk at the end between the babysitter and the main character is interesting and hints at her having done this for a long time. This shows how she still feels like that kid despite years of deals with the devil. I’d love to see a retro prequel.

The true scene stealer was the jock. He took genuine glee in murder and his interactions with the main character are closer to a big brother than attempted murderer. It was fun and ridiculous in the best way.

The parents, bully, and girl next door all act a little over the top. Something that works for the killers but makes the world feel dream like and a little silly when it comes from the regular world characters.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

There’s a lot of cheese and a lot of stilted dialogue. It’s most apparent with the bullies and parents. It’s a combination of weird and surreal that works for the rest of the movie but not the “real life” parts.

I’m not a fan of the girl next door’s seeming indifference to what’s happening. She’s sympathetic but doesn’t seem to process the horror of what’s going on, going straight from sympathy to hornyness without being afraid or worried.

That being said, there’s some funny dialogue and good quips.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The filming is well done and the special effects, despite being low budget, are quite good. I like the framing and cuts but there’s nothing special overall and I feel like it could have paid better homage to cinematography of horror movies past.

The music was effective but not amazing.

Score: 0.5

Fun

This is a fun movie. Being the only horror fan in the family I watched this alone. I enjoyed it.

Score: 1

Overall

A fun and silly horror which plays with the usual tropes and has some amazing banter and some excellent scenes. It’s mostly hurt by extending the weird surreal feel to the regular world characters and not contrasting them to the killers.

Final Score: 3.5 Stars out of 5

What if Tommy had Instagram?

Crushing It

That was the question I asked myself as I watched a fun instagram for a contemporary romance. This is the result, and I’m super proud of it.

If Instagram had existed in 2003, this is what Tommy would’ve posted during the first portion of the book Crushing It:

Cover art by @pinkpiggy93 on Tumblr and @flowerraven93 on Instagram

Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!

Physical from Canadian indie bookstoresphysical from Indigo, electronic version

Week 5 – Moana

This week is Moana, the 2016 film by Disney. I thought it would be nice to be able to go star-gazing when it’s not too cold but gets dark a little bit earlier. And this week has great viewing opportunities for Jupiter and Saturn at the beginning of the week (Mon-Wed), along with a full moon.

Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (I hope this works…please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Star-gazingWatch movieBake with coconutFlexObjects floating in water

Summary of the week

Daily details:

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano, learning guitar

Crochet

The project he is working on (currently he is making himself a poncho)

Basic Information

We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.

Printing words

Download material

Counting objects/math-type activities

Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –(in download material)

Storytime

Activity

Star gazing – Best days to view Jupiter and Saturn this week are Mon-Wed 2023 (just check weather first!) plus the full moon, add in some planet worksheets for colouring and talking about the planets (web linkweb link). Count and talk a bit about the planets (before going star gazing!) Youtube link/ French Youtube link

Bake with coconut – cookies? Any option you like

Objects floating in water (experiment link, printable worksheet in downloadable materials)

Next week: Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo!