Raymond Ocdol
Civil War Review

I really did not know what to expect from this movie, I'd seen the trailers and like most people I was pretty fixated on why a 2nd American Civil war was happening. The western forces of California and Texas? The Florida Alliance? A third term president of the loyalist states. Some pretty interesting choices for factions of a 2nd American Civil War and if you were thinking would dive much into this you would be wrong. Civil War is fundamentally about a civil war occurring in the modern USA, journalism specifically war journalism and the people on the ground. We follow a group of journalists as they make their way to DC. Our lead is Kirsten Dunst as Lee a war photographer, followed by Wagner Moura as Joel her college, Stephen McKinley Henderson as Sammy as their old mentor and Cailee Spaeny as Jessie as an aspiring photographer who tags along. Kirsten Dunst is quite the battle hardened pro while Cailee Spaeny's Jessie is the extremely green newcomer and a good part of the movie is Jessie learning the ropes.

Civil War Review
Raymond Ocdol
Top Games 2023

Really wised i got around to playing more this year on top of the giant backlog. Though I did play some other things besides WoW:Dragonflight. My GOTY is below plus some other highlights

Top Games 2023
Movie Review
Raymond Ocdol
Top Movies 2023

My Top 10 Movies for 2023 plus some special mentions at the end.

Top Movies 2023
Raymond Ocdol
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and ...

It's been quite a while since the YA craze and the last Hunger Games movie but here we are 2023 and a new movie, a prequel, the origin story of the main villain. The Hunger Games series were some of the better movies to come out of the YA craze, the quality was a bit un even especially at the end with Mockingjay being split into 2 part but overall solid movies.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Raymond Ocdol
A Haunting in Venice Review

A Haunting in Venice is Third movie is Kenneth Branagh's Poirot movie series, coming just a year after Death on the Nile though I think that movie got caught up in the Fox acquisition and the pandemic. Personally I thought Murder on the Orient Express was decent, Death on the Nile not so much, serviceable but not great for this third I did not have high hopes. Anyway turns out this movie is pretty good and is the best one out of the three.

A Haunting in Venice Review
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Minions Review

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Minions Review

Minions is a spinoff of the Despicable Me Franchise focusing on the Origin and Adventures of the the Minions, Illuminations yellow creatures the Minions.

The despicable Me Movies are these very fun, funny movies but they have heart to them as they touch family, what it means to be a family and for Gru what it means to be a father. Probably the most popular thing about these movies were the Minions and with the success of the movies and marketability of the minions it seems like it was inevitable that they would get their own movie.

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Love and Mercy - Review

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Love and Mercy - Review

Love and Mercy is the Biopic about Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. If It was not for work I probably would not have heard of the movie till maybe closer to Oscar season and though I am a little bit familiar with the Beach Boys music I never really knew much about the band. Rating online indicated the movie was decent so I expected the movie to be decent and it turns out it was pretty good.

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Jurassic World Review

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I was quite keen to see Jurassic World, I loved the original movie and remember it quite fondly from my childhood. I think a trailers probably gave too much away though, not as bad some other movies this year but I guess this is a problem for Hollywood and not just this movie.

Super Monkey Ball?

Super Monkey Ball?

Anyway I really liked the movie, after seeing a ton of action movies it was nice to see a more adventure movie. It has its action but it keeps that adventure and discovery spirit. There are ton of homages to the original movies which was good. Some were better than others and I think those more hidden references were the ones I liked the most.

In terms of the characters they were fine. The leads were fine, kids were fine I think if I had to pick a highlight it would be Irrfan Khan as Simon Masrani the CEO and owner of the park who was a pretty fun character. I will say dialogue was not the best looking back, but it was serviceable.

Overall pretty good movie, very much a blockbuster movie. It not perfect but this new Jurassic world franchise has some potential.

8.5/10


Other thoughts

There is some sequel set up/ world building involving the military which was quite interesting. Not sure if that the best direction to go down but it could be a pretty fun direction to go in.

Bryce Dallas Howard character was in heels the entire movie supposedly and that does not seem possible for some of the jungle scenes.


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