A sequel to the 3.5 seasons of the web show Carmilla. It does a good job of recapping what happened, but it’s quick. I think someone who hasn’t watched the show would be confused.
The story itself is interesting and really uses the locations well. It felt like a shorter version of the show.
Score: 1
Characters
The characters, even after five years, acted the same and retained the character growth from the show. The new characters were nice but didn’t have much screen time.
Score: 1
Dialogue
The dialogue was flippant and irreverent, just like the show. I particularly appreciated the sound mixing since I didn’t have subtitles.
Score: 1
Visuals and Music
The visuals were obviously a large improvement from a webcam-based story and were well thought out. The locations, particularly the manor house, were beautiful.
The music was okay but felt lacking at some points.
Score: 0.5
Fun
This really is a love letter to the fans and I enjoyed every moment of it.
Score: 1
Overall
The movie is a lot of fun for those that already have a nostalgic love of the show. If you haven’t watched it, you won’t get as much out of the movie. (Go watch the show.)
Today we’re talking about the 2017 film Power Rangers.
Story
This is a very derivative story. It’s a chosen-one, superhero, Breakfast Club with lots of old Power Ranger cheese. It’s exactly what I wanted from this movie even if it wasn’t original.
Score: 0.5
Characters
I liked the diversity. They each had their individual arcs, and despite the multiple set pieces eating the time, they all felt well set up and complete.
The acting was extremely well done considering the cheesiness of the script.
Score: 1
Dialogue
Some of the dialogue is terrible but delivered really well, almost making it seem natural.
The heart to heart moments between characters are pretty staged but again well-acted.
Score: 0.5
Visuals and Music
The visuals used the style of the old comics with the unmistakable 2010’s main colour palette. At least they kept the rangers brightly coloured.
The music is epic and the score utterly fantastic.
Score: 1
Fun
I wanted something that had the essence of the Power Rangers I grew up with. I didn’t want the exact same story or the same characters (I don’t remember them that well, it’s been 30 years since I watched it). This delivered and was just plain fun. Lost of cheese, lots of great acting, and some awesome battles.
Score: 1
Overall
A fun take on the concept of Power Rangers that will enrage the diehard fans but on its own it’s a fun and exciting movie.
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.
I have a massive soft spot for musicals and I’m not a huge fan of zombie movies, so this was interesting. The story itself is cookie cutter zombie genre with nothing new to add other than the music.
Score: 0
Characters
The final girl, the best friend, the overbearing dad, the bad boy, the lesbian, the smoochie couple, and the maniacal . It’s a buffet of zombie, YA, and horror tropes.
They might be tropes, but the actors and writers did a great job and managed to balance the psychological horror of zombie with the almost sillness of a musical.
Score: 0.5
Dialogue
Vacillating from corny to deep and touching, the dialogue does a great job in understanding the characters. There’s more than a few good quips too.
Score: 1
Visuals and Music
The cinematography in general was okay, the choreography was acceptable, and the gore was well done. My favourite scene happens when the main character doesn’t know there’s been a full apocalypse and is dancing and singing on her way to school with total carnage happening behind her.
The music is excellent and I’ll be humming, “Hollywood Ending” for a long time. Great harmonies, fun numbers, and they work both for a zombie movie or just a high school movie.
Score: 1
Fun
I loved the music, the characters were great, and I enjoyed the movie, but there’s a nihilism to zombie films that just isn’t fun. Nailing the ending to have a little hope but still be dour is hard. There was no hope left in this one.
Score: 0.5
Overall
A fun film with some excellent musical numbers and great acting, but in the end it’s just another zombie movie with nothing new to add.
A rare sequel which is more coherent and better all around. Possibly the best video game themed movie of all time, it both relies on and mocks the usual tropes.
Score: 1
Characters
The main five actors do a phenomenal job at being the kids. It’s mostly believable and impressively detailed. Jack Black is amazing.
Score: 1
Dialogue
The problem with trying to capture the dialogue of teens is how quickly it changes. The dialogue already sounds dated after just five years. Although the quips, jokes, and overall tone is well done.
Score: 0.5
Visuals and Music
The movie looks great and I greatly appreciate that they didn’t try to animate it like a video game.
The music is haunting and exciting all at once.
Score: 1
Fun
The five year old found it a little scary, but she loved the action and humour. It’s nice to see her starting to appreciate word-based humour more.
The rest of us enjoyed it as much as the first few times. I particularly appreciate that the humour around Jack Black’s character was so wholesome.
Score: 1
Overall
A wonderful adventure that balances action, humour, and character development for a near perfect movie.
The main plot of the movie is typical undercover reporter fall in love with subject. It makes reporters look bad and honestly the entire things is awkward.
The parts of the story that shine are when the characters are soul searching or making genuine connections. The sister character is fantastic and I could have watched the whole movie about her instead.
Score: 0
The Royal Wedding
The weak mystery is barely explored instead they spend most of it on wedding angst and pushing the main character around.
Again, like the first on the bright spot is the sister. She’s inspiring and adorable.
Score: 0
The Royal Baby
This was a well written closed-circle mystery that kept me guessing until the end. (Although I did have the culprit in my top 3.) The characters were less wet towel and they gelled with each other more. There was some awkward drama and they tried much too hard to pin the blame on Simon, again.
Score: 0.5
Characters
A Christmas Prince
The main character does a great job of being doe-eyed and fell for the prince the same time we all did, when we saw him with his sister. There’s some nice developement for the main three characters but overall it felt lack-luster.
Score: 0.5
The Royal Wedding
The king went from an unsure prince who doesn’t want to commit to being king to now being an unsure king who trusts his advisors way too much. The main character gets pushed around and is only really interesting when she pushes back or is helping the sister. There’s also a storyline that’s lifted directly from Princess Diaries. I’ll give the movie this, they did a great job with the redemption arc.
Score: 0.5
The Royal Baby
Overall this was a cute and joyful set of characters, something that should be standard for a Christmas movie. I liked the new additions.
Score: 1
Dialogue
A Christmas Prince
Mostly acceptable, if a little over the top. There are a few good speeches about identity, but nothing spectacular. The dad and the sister got all the great lines.
Score: 0.5
The Royal Wedding
Completely over the top; comparing the dialogue to a telenovela would be an insult to telenovelas.
However, as a giant nerd, I did appreciate the quotes and nods to other movies.
Score: 0.5
The Royal Baby
The writers built on the geeky quotes from the last one and made sure to include as much dorky future parents stuff as possible. The dialogue for them was believable and cute.
Score: 0.5
Visuals and Music
A Christmas Prince
The cinematography of this movie made me angry and gave me a headache. My family didn’t seem to notice, but the constant slow paning for no reason was extremely frustrating.
The locations were lovely and very thematic.
The music was lack-luster and was only elevated by the christmas music included. (You can’t go wrong with Tchaickovsky.)
Score: 0.5
The Royal Wedding
The cinematographer discovered quick cuts since the last one and they were almost as over used as the pans.
That being said, the scenery and clothing were good and the music classic.
Score: 0.5
The Royal Baby
Finally the useless pans are gone and the director and cinematographer started to frame the shots better. It’s not excellent, but good. The castle and clothing are as beautiful as ever.
The music didn’t stand out much; a few cute scenes but nothing spectacular.
Score: 0.5
Fun
A Christmas Prince
Breaking a ming vase or shooting an arrow through a window is a level of awkward I don’t like. There’s a lot of the movie that just isn’t fun to watch even if you know everything will end up fine.
Score: 0.5
The Royal Wedding
The obvious mystery was dragged out too long, and the angst was also dragged out too long. I spent a lot of the movie rolling my eyes and not yelling.
The sister and eventual warm ending was good though.
Score: 0.5
The Royal Baby
I have a soft spot for good mysteries and this was pretty close. It also isn’t angsty and kept my attention. A lot of fun.
Score: 1
Overall
A Christmas Prince
An excellent cast with a mediocre script and lots of cringe, the only thing that truly saves this is the interactions with the little sister.
Final Score: 2 stars out of 5
The Royal Wedding
An acceptable sequel to a lack-luster movie. Too little plot and too much angst. Again the sister saves the movie but she’s joined by a delightful redemption.
Final Score: 2 stars out of 5
The Royal Baby
Finally a balance between urgency and angst, this movie is the best of the three, with a fun mystery and lots of the best parts of the first two movies. I will probably skip the others in future years and just watch this one.
Today we’re talking about the 2017 film Coin Heist.
Story
The build-up and teen angst were forefront on this movie. Despite the name, there was very little heist. The film was disjointed with too many undeveloped threads. The heist was jumbled and not explained. Meaning we weren’t sure where the mistakes in the heist happened. It felt like it wanted to be a heist movie, a teen drama, and an independent art film all at once.
The ending set up a perfect revenge scenario that would have been a great pay off, but didn’t use it and that pisses me off.
Score: 0
Characters
The characters were boring, stereotypical, and angsty-er than a WB show from the early 2000’s. The acting was passable but it felt like they were as confused about what was going on as the audience.
Score: 0.5
Dialogue
The only thing more grating than the bad heist dialogue or the teen angst was the annoying trope that was the teacher.
Score: 0
Visuals and Music
The visuals were close in and pretty basic. There wasn’t anything that was particularly pretty or impressive but nothing terrible.
The music was okay, lots of angst-ridden heist-like music and a good song.
Score: 0.5
Fun
When they were in heist mode (maybe 20 minutes of the movie) it was fun and exciting. Beyond that it was a little boring.
Score: 0.5
Overall
I’m really angry at the ending. If they’d used the extra coins to flood the market and basically devalue them, they could have gotten back at the jackass that caused the entire thing. Instead they melt them down and add them to a statue… sigh.
2017 was a surprisingly good year for movies. I managed to see 21 movies that came out in theatres but there were so many more that I wanted to and didn’t get a chance.
This is the ranking of movies I saw in theatres (or rented) that were released in 2017. This doesn’t include Netflix originals, made for TV Movies, or straight to DVD releases.
I hope you’re having a wonderful holiday season filled with warmth and joy.
Last year, I set forth some lofty goals. Let’s see how I did.
1. Write 3000 words a week. (Fail)
This year has been terrible for productivity in writing; unfortunately I haven’t fallen back into the groove. I did manage a Novella of 30,000 words, the serial story, regular posts, and roughly 3000 words into Mystery of the Dancing Lights. I’ll have to alter this goal for next year.
2. Complete The Copper Tarnish by March. (Fail)
I decided mid-year to put this one away and come back to it someday. It’s only at 15,000 words and I’m not happy with it. I think I’ll try and re-work it at a later time.
3. Start the next Elizabeth Investigates. (Pass)
The Hounds of Baker Ville: I realized it wouldn’t have enough emotional weight if we weren’t more invested in certain characters. I’ve moved the concept to book 6.
I started book 4, called The Mystery of the Dancing Lights. I wrote the intro and the first chapter and then I stalled. Recently I sat down and plotted out the book and now I can’t wait to write it.
4. Read 30 books. (Pass)
I had to read a few graphic novels near the end, but I made my goal. It’s a great way to motivate myself to read and read more than that one series I’m obsessed with. Or worse, just scrolling through Facebook endlessly.
6. Test, Produce, and Develop 2 new coffee flavours. (Pass)
Both Green Apple and Marshmallow have been great successes. I’ve even got plans for next year.
7. Playtest the new content for FADDS and get it ready for submission in 2018. (Fail)
I got overly ambitious and added too much to the rules. Now I’m scrambling to finish them. Hopefully I can submit by end of 2019.
8. Continue to ensure there’s content 5 days a week on JenEric Designs. (Pass)
Despite the baby, going back to work, multiple colds and flus, not to mention life in general, we were able to continue producing content, and quality I think, every weekday of 2017.
10. Prepare A Case of Synchronicity submission to my publisher and Everdome for pitches at Can-Con. (Pass and Fail)
I haven’t even looked at A Case of Synchronicity this year. It’ll have to wait… unfortunately.
I did pitch Everdome to an agent and queried a big publisher. It was rejected both times but I will find this book a home.
Final Score
So I accomplished 5.5 out of 10. That’s 55% and technically a pass.
Looking at past years I seem to be slipping by 5% each year. Considering that the goals are getting more intense, I suppose that’s normal.
Next year hopefully I won’t get below 50% but in the end it doesn’t matter if I have a goal of writing 150,000 words and I write 100,000, I still did better than if I hadn’t tried.
