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

Grand Budapest Hotel

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Grand Budapest Hotel Review

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Grand Budapest Hotel Review

Quite liked this movie, had a really nice charming story. The visuals were amazing and the characters were good. There is a bit of darkness to movie especially background of some of the events and I think that added to it. For being primarily set in one place it had a great sense of adventure to it and bit of an old school feel especially with the 4:3 aspect ratio used for most of the movie. I watched this on an iPad not really knowing what to expect and it turned out that was a great decision due to the iPads aspect ratio which fit the movie perfectly. Overall very enjoyable, charming and gorgeous movie. Not the usual type of movie people go to see but it you get the chance go watch it you are in for a treat.

9/10

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