PixlBit

Well another summer is almost over, and I watched a lot of summer movies in theaters this year.  So I thought I’d write a blog with brief impressions on them!  Keep in mind that there MIGHT be some slight spoilers here and there, but I’ll try to keep them to a minimum.  So grab your popcorn and see what I watched this summer!

The Avengers: Age of Ultron

I enjoyed the movie but I don't think it was better than the first, just more of the same.  But the first was a fun action flick so that made this one fun, too.  Although if you showed me a clip from the first movie and a clip from the second, I probably couldn't tell you which one each clip was from.  Kind of like the Lord of the Rings movies.  I don't know who is in charge of the Avengers, whether it be Captain America or Eye Patch Man, but they need to make a new rule.  They need to require all new recruits to the Avengers to wear name tags that say "Hello, my name is..."  That way, I won't have to make up my own names like "Guy Who Goes Fast" or "Girl Who Shoots Red Things."  Also, I kept wanting to call it “Age of Voltron.”  Of course, know that I'm not big into comic books and all my Marvel knowledge comes from Marvel vs.Capcom and LEGO Marvel Super Heroes video games.  Speaking of the Avengers, you've got to go to YouTube and do a search for The Aveggies: Age of Bon Bon.  I liked that better than the movie!

Rifftrax: The Room & Sharknado 2

Some of the folks who used to do Mystery Science Theater 3000 now do something similar without the robot puppets.  Sometimes they have their live shows in theaters and this was one of them.  Oh man, The Room was so painful to watch.  It was like a bad soap opera.  I would never see this without Rifftrax, that’s for sure!  Later on in the summer they showed Sharknado 2.  It’s not as funny since that movie was SUPPOSED to be bad, but I’d rather watch it via Rifftrax than plain ol’ Syfy.

Mad Max: Fury Road

I didn’t really get much into the older Mad Max movies when they came out, because when they were in theaters, I was just a little kid.  And my parents wouldn’t let me see those movies when I was that little.  Of course, they did let me see Gremlins and Ghostbusters.  So I wasn’t as familiar with Mad Max until way later on.  This new one seemed a lot like the others, just a bunch of crazy cars driving out in the desert.  But with modern movie special effects and computer animation, I think they were able to be more imaginative with the cars.  There was a tank car and a porcupine car, and a rock n roll car.  And there was so much action that they didn’t have time to take any breaks.  They didn’t go potty or eat any snacks.  Well, one guy at a bug and Mad Max ate a two headed lizard.  I liked some of the MST3K movie episodes where they made fun of Mad Max ripoffs that were made when that movie was popular.  My favorite was Warrior of the Lost World.  It had a dump truck with spikes that they called Megaweapon, and an annoying talking motorcycle.

Tomorrowland

And this movie was kind of the opposite of Mad Max.  While it was a dopey kids’ movie, it did kind of have a ‘Gravity Falls’ vibe to it, so that was cool.  Plus, the bad guy’s speech near the end of the movie was really poignant.  Too bad nobody will take it seriously since no one will see this movie.  The message was good, too.  People embrace a bleak, dark, post-apocalyptic zombie future because we don’t have to work hard toward it like we do a more positive future.  I just don’t understand the fascination with dark futures anyway.  I was disappointed there was no Space Mountain in the movie, though.

Jurassic World

This is a perfect example of a typical summer ‘turn off your intelligence’ movie.  It was a fun flick, but I think the plot was written by an 8-year-old.  And if you think the movie was cheesy, wait’ll you play the LEGO Jurassic World game!

Inside Out

Animation-wise, it didn’t look like this was Pixar’s usual groundbreaking stuff.  But the story and humor and themes were very well done.  I bet psychology majors would go nuts over this one.  I foresee many a college paper written about this movie.  The more I think about all the elements in this movie, I think the more I like it.  The plot reminds me of the one found in the video game Klonoa 2.  The two of you who’ve played that game would know what I mean.

Minions

I think the Minions movie wins the award for the most over-marketed movie of the summer!  We have Minions Twinkies, Minions Applesauce, Minions Build-A-Bear, Minions Happy Meals, Minions paper towels, even freaking Minions cereal!  The movie itself, like the Despicable Me movies before it, aren’t all that great, but they’re still entertaining and those Minions are just so gosh darn cute.  Even if they are a ripoff of Servebots.  Man, a Servebot movie would be neat.  Get on that, Capcom!

Ant-Man

Yet another Marvel movie.  It was fun and entertaining even if I didn’t know who any of the characters were.  But that’s OK, usually I don’t.  I liked the main lady character in the movie, too, she was neat.  I think Ant-Man’s next nemesis should be called The Aardvark.  You know, like the Pink Panther Ant and the Aardvark cartoons?  If you haven’t seen the movie yet, make sure to stay for both of the end credit scenes.  They didn’t mean much to me since I don’t know a lot about Marvel stuff, but I’m sure they’re more meaningful for all you Marvel fans out there.  I bet Ant-Man WON’T be a character in the next Marvel vs. Capcom!

Pixels

So yeah, just like everyone on the Internet and Rifftrax has said, this movie has the exact same plot as that one episode of Futurama.  But Futurama did that idea way better and funnier.  However, maybe it’s just my high tolerance to bad movies from all those years of watching MST3K, but I didn’t think it was AS bad as everyone else says it is.  Now, it wasn’t very good either, but still.  Maybe people didn’t like it because it makes fun of gamer stereotypes?  Well, to that I say, lighten up people!  Whatever happened to the phrase “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?”  Surely us gamers can take a joke at our own expense.  We have no right to make fun of others if that’s the case.  Actually I think the main problem with Pixels is that they showed too much of the funny stuff in the previews.  So sure the movie is bad, but if you want to go see it, I’m not going to discourage you.  You know I’d have to go see it regardless to see how they treated my boy Pac-Man.  Speaking of which, I wonder how the creator of Pac-Man, Toru Iwatani, would feel about an actor portraying him in a movie?  I guess if I had to say one positive thing about Pixels, is that maybe it’ll raise awareness of classic arcade games.  I know Dave & Busters has commercials on TV now advertising Pac-Man Battle Royale.  But if you do want to see a better classic video game movie, might I recommend Wreck-It Ralph?

Shaun the Sheep: The Movie

I’m a huge fan of Aardman Animation.  I took a clay animation class once so I know how difficult it is to do what they do!  I love how Shaun the Sheep is a spin-off of Wallace and Gromit, and that Timmy Time is a spin-off of Shaun the Sheep.  That’s how awesome Wallace and Gromit is, it has spin-offs of spin-offs!  Anyway, if you’ve seen the Shaun the Sheep shorts, you know what to expect here.  It may not be as good as Chicken Run or the Wallace and Gromit movie, but it is still very cute and you can take the whole family to see it.

Movies I Missed

And those are the movies I saw this summer.  There were a few I missed, but that’s OK, I got to see a lot as it is, and you can’t see ‘em all!  I think the main movie I didn’t see this summer was Fantastic Four, but I heard it was really bad.  So bad that the director had to apologize for it.  I have a high tolerance to bad movies but since I’ve been blind in my left eye and can’t drive, I have to have someone to go with me to these things, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask someone to go see a movie so bad with me.  So I will just Netflix it instead.  It’s OK, I don’t think I saw the last Fantastic Four movies in theaters anyway.  I can’t even remember the characters’ names.  I think there’s Stretchy Guy, See-Through Woman, Fire Man, and Thingburger.  Speaking of which, Denny’s has a new item on their menu to promote the movie and it’s called the Thingburger and it looks really good.  I hope I get to try one, but we’ll see.  You know a movie is bad when a hamburger based on it sounds better.

There was also a new Dragonball movie that they were/are showing in select theaters that I was kind of interested in, but I was too lazy to find which theaters it was shown at, if any nearby.  I may Netflix Terminator Genisys and the Poltergeist remake when those come out on DVD, as they were summer movies I missed, too.  Speaking of Netflix, I did recently rent the Paddington movie and I didn’t think it was that bad at all.  It stayed true to the books and was a cute family movie.  One cool thing is that the actress who played the mom in the movie was also in the new Godzilla film.  I thought that was an awesome transition so she goes in my favorite actresses list. 

And that’s all for now!  In the comments section, let me know what you think of the movies I saw, and my opinions of them.  And tell me which movies you saw this summer, too!  I think the best movie I saw this summer was probably Inside Out.  Later!  --Cary