Life is Strange

I'm the next on the docket to beat this game. After Stan has said so much -- covering a lot of great points about what the game has to offer -- I don't really know what else to say. At least I don't think I can contribute anything without dropping some SPOILERS. Yes... this is a SPOILERS post, and believe me that this is a game that's likely best experienced with a fresh mind when entering. So, no peeking. (I'm talking to you, Sween. Or you can read ahead. What do I care?)

Overall, I loved this game. Playing roughly a chapter a night, I beat this in just under a week. What kept me coming back again and again was the story, because, well... that's really all this "game" has to offer. It's story. Sure you can walk around and explore your immediate surroundings, but this game is like a rail-shooter for a narrative. You talk to the people and interact with the objects in your immediate surroundings and that leads you to make decisions which will affect how the story and further interactions with characters unfold. While I enjoyed the story a ton and was completely caught up in the moment, I can't help but wish my decisions mattered more in the long run.

What that boils down to is that no matter how you play the game, the story will always end up on the same one decision -- whether to save your friend, Chloe, and let thousands in your hometown die, or kill your friend and save the town. I will say that as invested as I was in the story, this was a heart wrenching decision for me. While I obviously wanted to perform the action that served the greater good (besides the fact that your character, Max, and Chloe would just die along with the town if you didn't try and stop its destruction making the choice a total exercise in futility), it was tough to pull that trigger that would end the life of the person you've been struggling to protect throughout the entire course of the game. 

So, that leaves me kind of split on where I stand with this game.

On one hand, I loved the ride the narrative took me on. Every episode ended with a great cliffhanger making want to come back for more and more, and I really felt like the characters (at least the main ones) were diverse and well fleshed out.

Yeah, Stan pointed out that some of the dialogue for the teenagers felt awkward and out-of-touch from what kids would really say -- almost as if writers from another country were trying to tap into what American teens sounded like (this being a French game, stands to reason that's exactly what was happening). But that's more of a pet peeve than an actual fault with the game. 

My real complaint with the game is that I wanted MORE. I wanted them to really push the envelope on the variety of ramifications that would occur as a consequence to my actions and decisions throughout the game. Sure, this likely makes the game would be far more challenging to construct from a development side, but I think that's what they should strive for. I mean, it's not like games haven't accomplished this in the past, right? Didn't Chrono Trigger have something like 13 possible endings depending on how you played the game? I get that Chrono Trigger might not be the best comparison as it wasn't keeping tally of decisions you made throughout the whole (or did it? -- I can't really remember), but considering Life is Strange focused on nothing but your choices, it seems like it should have played a bigger role in shaping your own unique experience within the game. 

There are interactions with characters that will play a role in deciding how future events will unfold later in the game, but those results were fairly underwhelming in the large scheme of things. The one example that comes to mind is a girl whom you're constantly saving from getting bonked on the head from something each and every episode. While I failed to save her in the final episode, Stan explained that she would save you from getting killed by a falling sign during the catastrophic storm at the game's climax -- which is exactly what happened to me! But that means shit considering your character can rewind time (sorry if I didn't make that element of the gameplay explicit earlier on) thus making it a trivial accomplishment. 

All these minor complaints aside, I was left speechless after the game ended. It's only upon further reflection that the game's flaws start to come to light. But is it really that much of a flaw if the game was capable of getting me all caught me up in the moment. Fuck, the story brought me to the edge of tears on a couple of occasions! Ah, screw it to all my nitpicking. I guess when something gives you gold, you become greedy for more. There are definitely ways the game could evolve from being good to becoming great... but as it stands right now, I consider it a definite must-play. And we'll leave it with that. 

Rise of the Tomb Raider

After a very rocky start -- encountering a bug 40% into the game that could only be resolved by restarting the game on a new save file -- I finally got around to beating this title. Despite leaving a poor taste in my mouth when it first came out last November, I was extremely pleased how this game turned out when I finished it a few weeks ago. Sure, the game is very similar to its immediate predecessor, but just because something is not entirely original doesn't mean it isn't fun. 

I had a blast exploring all of the game's beautiful environments and unfurling the story of Croft following her father's unfinished work as she races against Trinity in the search for the lost city of Kitezh. Despite similar gameplay to the first title in this rebooted series, there's something immensely pleasing about constantly picking shit up and getting consistent increases in my stats. Maybe my dopamine sensors in my brain are wired to feed out "pleasure" whenever I get slightest reward in my gaming experiences, but I found it hard to put the controller down at night and go to bed -- kind of like when I used to play the Sid Meier's Civilization games. (Thank god I don't touch those games anymore or I would, sadly, get even less done than I already do. And that's not much to speak of!) Overall, this was a fun game. Nothing amazing, but fun to say the least.

My only real gripe with this game -- aside from, you know, the whole bug that forced me to lose 15 hours of gameplay! -- was all the mindless climbing around. I know it's suppose to be a take on platforming, but it never really felt all that challenging. More like a chore I had to follow through on to get from point A to point B. Things like the graphing hook were nice touches to make these elements of the gameplay a little more lively and exciting, but I wish they could make these treks up mountainsides (that does take up a considerable amount of the gameplay) a little more challenge, and, therefore, making it worth my time to focus on. 

On a different note, looks like we'll be getting another (rebooted) Tomb Raider movie in the future. Good news: It's stars the talented Alicia Vikander (who some may remember from Ex Machina and winning an Oscar this year) and I believe she'll make a great Laura Croft. Bad news: It's got the writer from Snow White and the Huntsman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- not the good one, the Michael Bay bullshit one. To be fair, this will be a WB movie, and they're known for dumping money on reshoots and constantly finessing the story till they feel comfortable that it's fit for audiences (just wish they took the extra time with Batman vs. Superman). There's also some Norwegian director I've never heard of attached to the film. But if there's anything I can take in solace after gleaming at his films' posters is that he will likely know how to shoot action scenes in the wild and show people getting fucked up as they helplessly tumble down mountain faces. 

So there's hope yet for a Tomb Raider movie that can actually live up to the excitement I've experienced from the games!

Trev's Movie Dump: May 2016

The Witch (2016)

If you haven't seen this film yet, put it on your backlog for Halloween. This is a great horror film about a New England family cast away from their 17th century puritan town and forced to start a life on their own. A man, a wife, several kids... and a witch lurking in the nearby woods. As this poor family attempts to keep on keeping on, they hit roadblock after roadblock causing their household to slowly self-destruct, until... 

We'll you'll just have to see. 

The film definitely has a slow build for the first two-thirds. Some people I know who saw it, this was their biggest complaint. I, however, was totally hooked. Growing up in New England (as we all did) something about our woods is eerily haunting and beautiful, and the film does an excellent job at exploiting the vulnerability I always felt when walking through the woods alone on an autumn evening. This isn't a blood and gore slasher film (although there certainly is some blood), this is a suspense film. A story that strives to drive you insane as you try to understand where the threats are coming from. Who to trust and who to cast aside. 

Definitely a good pick for a Halloween movie that will stand head and shoulders above any other formulaic crap coming to theaters during that time -- I'm looking at you The Ring 3... Oh, wait... It's The Ring 3D! Guys, the 3D that means it has to be good! Apologies, apologies. Clearly, we already have our Halloween all figured out folks! Hopefully we'll get another nonsensical crazy deers crashing into a car scene again. Ugh... what nonsense. 

But, seriously... catch The Witch. Good stuff.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Ah, another comic book movie. This really marks the first big blockbuster movie of the summer that dazzled me. Now, I'm not saying these Marvel (and when I say Marvel I mean Disney-Marvel) are the best things to hit theaters, but -- in general -- I'm excited to see these films on the big screen. They almost always deliver on that fun, exciting experience the movie theater was truly designed for. 

I also like that despite this film having a whole slew of characters packed in it (to the point they can felt like the spiritual sequel to The Avengers II), it was actually a fairly small story. A former bad-guy thought to be responsible for a massive crime is defended by his (former) best friend willing to fight like hell to prove his innocence. No big plot of some evil empire threatening to destroy the whole world. For as big as the picture was, it maintained a sense of feeling grounded. And I applaud it for that. 

Sure, there were some plot holes... (SPOILERS!) Like would Zemo's plan have worked if Iron Man didn't decide to follow Captain America out to that weird bunker with all those other super soldiers? Or how about multiple security cameras conveniently being placed around the murder site of the Starks -- let alone a high profile, super wealthy inventor/weapons manufacturer driving on an abandoned street at night with no security. But, hey... you suspend your disbelief while you let yourself get caught up in the excitement of the story. 

If you already haven't seen it, watch this in theaters. It's worth getting that larger-than-life experience... especially for gi-Ant-Man. (Ah, Paul Rudd. You are a treasure.)

Keanu (2016)

I'm a big fan of Key and Peele (both the TV show and the actors), and with this being their first major film together I was super excited to catch it. Simple, yet ridiculous story. Two suburbanite guys venture into the seedy underbelly of the LA gang, The Blips (a fallout gang for those unable to get into the Bloods and the Crips) in order to find Peele's stolen kitten, Keanu. In the end, it turns into a story about two guys growing a pair and finding the strength to take back control of their (respective) lives... while taking on several violent gangs and a pair of devious hit men in the process. 

While I did laugh. A bunch. The movie felt like bit from their TV show that just kept running on and on. It's totally worth a watch when you have the time. But, I wouldn't specifically make time to see this.

Favorite moment? Key accidentally goes on a hallucinogenic drug trip and has a conversation with the kitten, Keanu... who's voice appropriately enough by Keanu Reeves. 

The Do-Over (2016)

Oh... Why did I watch this? What was I expecting?! To be fair, I saw this while I was back east the other weekend and was just killing time while trying to fall asleep and unfortunately ended up watching the whole thing. 

But you know what, instead of actually leaving a review or anything on this, I'll give you a snapshot of the final image of the film. 

Sorry for the poor quality. Took this off my phone from my old tube TV in my old bedroom -- not that an HD-quality version would help sell this. 

Yup. That pretty sums up my experience with this one. 

The Nice Guys (2016)

Lethal Weapon? Last Action Hero? Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang? Who doesn't love a little Shane Black.

One of the leading screenwriters from back in the 90's, this guy is returning to his roots here with humorous buddy-cop romp. Set in LA during the 1970's, a hired tough-guy (Crowe) and drunk and dysfunctional private eye (Gosling) team up to solve a missing persons case that's connected to the death of a porn star. 

It's a super fun film that I'm sad is not having more success in the box office. Gosling is a riot and he teams up pretty well when opposite to Crowe. Also a shoutout to the actress who plays Gosling's daughter, who I kind of connect as Penny from Inspector Gadget -- it's the girl who's always told to stay home, never does, and ends up helping progress the case through her inquisitive nature despite her youth. 

I can sort of see why this film isn't for everyone as it's definitely a hard R. A fair amount of violence, cursing, and a whole lot of boobies (I mean, we're solving a murder mystery surrounding the porn industry), but it's still refreshing to see something fresh in theaters that's not already a part of a larger franchise. 

Speaking of original ideas...  

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Now, this... this is a fucking movie. Easily the best film I've seen all year from the fuckers who time and time again deliver on how to tell a fucking story right. The Coen Bros. 

Set in the 1950's golden age of Hollywood (the era where studios didn't just hire actors, they owned them -- not that too much has changed between then and now), this movie follows Josh Brolin as the head of production for a major studio who's got his hands full making sure his studio and stars stay on track and keep churning out the good stuff, big-time motion pictures. But when their star for their next major motion picture, Hail Casear! (a Jesus Christ epic set in ancient Rome), is abducted by a group of communist-sympathizing, jaded screenwriters, Brolin's character has to put together the pieces to figure out how to get production back in working order -- all while a bunch of other ridiculous scandals and drama involving his studio ensue around him. 

On the surface, this is another dry-wit comedy that only the Coen Bros. could deliver. Not only does this film have humor, but it has two delightful musical numbers that call back to the golden age of Hollywood. One, a synchronized swimming routing, and the other a tap-dancing number with a bunch of sailors who sing and dance to a hilariously homo-erotic number. While this film certainly delivers on the laughs, it's also a noodle-scratcher.

I've only watched this film once, so far, but it's clear this film could easily be watched several times and one might still be missing on all the subtext and messages it's trying to impart. Whether it's commentary on religion, capitalism, communism, or personal relationships, there's a lot to uncover. But, fuck that... Just sit back and enjoy a film that got shafted with a weird ass release date of Jan/Feb and flew audiences relatively unnoticed. 

Also, the film features the new Han Solo himself, Alden Ehrenreich who's actually got some real chomps as a actor. Despite being a bit on the tiny size, I could definitely see him as Han Solo. 

Life Is Strange

So much to say, so little cohesion. It's bullet time! No spoilers, I promise.

• Life Is Strange is an episodic game from Dontnod Entertainment, an indie developer with higher aspirations. The five episodes were released two or three months apart across the span of 2015, and I bought the whole game a few weeks ago. This is actually the first episodic game I've played, though at least one more is waiting in the backlog. I liked the format. One cohesive story, but broken into five somewhat stand-alone chunks. It felt like prestige television, kind of. I still haven't experienced an episodic game in "real time" but if the alleged Final Fantasy VII remake is indeed an episodic experience, I can't see myself waiting for the full game to drop before jumping right in. Wait, that reminds me - way back in 2009-2010 I played Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, which was technically episodic in nature. Still, you know what I mean, I think.
• So, Life Is Strange was only barely a game and much more of a "graphic adventure" in the vein of the Zero Escape series. There's more to do here - more optional scenes and much more of a choose-your-own-adventure vibe - but almost all of the gameplay consists of walking around, talking to people, and making small decisions that could have drastic impacts later on. More on that to follow...
• The core mechanic and story of Life Is Strange revolves around a girl named Max. She's a photography student at a prestigious school in a small coastal Oregon town. As the game begins, Max is haunted by visions of a massive storm engulfing and destroying the little town. She snaps out, wakes up in class, and immediately heads for the restroom to collect herself. There, she witnesses two students arguing about drug money when one of them pulls out a gun and shoots the other in the stomach. Distraught, Max suddenly rewinds time (yes, like in Braid) and finds herself back in photography class. To prevent the bathroom shooting, she pulls a fire alarm.
• The rest of the game hinges on this rewind mechanic. Mainly, it allows you to experiment with multiple dialogue options in certain scenes and then undo what you've said or done if you don't like where it's headed. Most decisions you can make in the game are minor at best. Early on, for instance, an oblivious girl gets hit in the back of the head by a football. Nothing major, but you can rewind time in order to warn her. (And why wouldn't you do this?) The game helpfully provides a little sound riff and an image of a butterfly flapping its wings (ha! get it?) any time you make a decision or take an action that will have consequences down the line. Early on, I found myself dwelling over these choices - even one as minor as whether or not to move a piece of wood in order to get a good picture of a bird's nest. By Episode 4 or 5, I was often barreling forward through my own decision trees without much regard for rewinding in order to see the alternatives, even when those decisions stopped being about footballs and birds nests and started dealing with life and death.
• In addition to the whole "the town is doomed" issue, a number of other subplots weave their way throughout the game and rise to various levels of prominence. For one, a student named Rachel has gone missing. For another, the unhinged drug dealer who shot the other kid in the bathroom is, well, a loose cannon - too bad his family "owns" this small town! For another, the school's head of security is a big old asshole and he's got it in for Max. And lastly - most prominently - Max runs into her old friend, Chloe, and their rekindled friendship is at the center of more or less all of those other plots as well.
• The game varied a lot in tone. This thing felt straight up Donnie Darko at first - small town, calamity on the horizon, high school drama in the background. Then as the missing student took focus and some shadier elements revealed themselves, it was much more Twin Peaks. Then as Max's decisions build up in weight and several alternate realities play out, many of them to horrible conclusions, I could only think of Ashton Kutcher's maligned Butterfly Effect. There's also a hint of Final Destination in there, at least insofar as one character who seems to be doomed no matter what happens.
• How have I gotten this far in without raving about the atmosphere? This game is fucking beautiful, not so much graphically, but just in its fully realized environments. When Max revisits Chloe's house for the first time in five years, there are a dozen or more little details that just reek of nostalgia and yearning. (That the game takes place in autumn is an ingenious touch.) Oh look, there's the wine stain on the living room carpet from the time Max and Chloe got busted sneaking hits from the bottle at thirteen. Here's a rusty charcoal grill in the backyard that maybe hasn't even been touched since Chloe's father died - but man, did he make the best burgers. Chloe's mom still works at the quaint little diner that every townie loves (Mario's, fellow bloggers?) This game makes you feel nostalgic for experiences you never even had - and plenty you did have. Are most of the students at Blackwell Academy trope-y high school stereotypes? Absolutely - but that doesn't make them ring false!
• The music. God damn. Using a blend of original scores and licensed tracks, Life Is Strange feels almost specifically designed for people like me - white men in their late twenties who went through high school and college ten years ago. The opening titles are set to Syd Matters' "To All of You," perhaps best known as a song from the O.C. prom episode that aired in 2006. Another episode begins with the use of Bright Eyes' "Lua," a track from 2004. There's "Crosses," José González, 2005. The list goes on and on. Would a high school senior/college freshman born in the mid-'90s really be all about indie-folk from ten years prior? I guess it's not impossible - I was plenty into some mid-'90s stuff myself in the mid-'00s - but, come on, Dontnod  -those songs aren't there for Max; they're there for me! And thank you!
• Most games that ask you to make moral choices (BioShock, Infamous, etc.) very clearly end up rewarding or punishing you accordingly. Infamous has a completely binary meter that very much wants you to act purely good or entirely evil; there's no incentive to dabble around with shades of grey. BioShock has a decidedly "good" ending that occurs only if you've rescued every single Little Sister in the game. Both of these games even give you achievements for being good or bad to varying extents. Here, there's none of that. If you want to play nice with the bitchy alpha girl on campus instead of humiliating her when you have the chance, that's your prerogative; the story will evolve accordingly, but there are no "points" to be gained or lost for being an everyday hero. Most major decisions you need to make will pit one character against another in some way, and you're forced to choose sides. Again, no "right" or "wrong" answer.
• The game's emotional climax - for me- came at the end of Episode 2. I'll spoil nothing, but let's just say that I learned "the hard way" that even having the power to rewind time can't prevent some tragedies, whereas being a good person can. There's a certain event that occurs here that the game seems to present in an inevitable manner, and only afterward did I realize I could have prevented it from happening by paying closer attention to something earlier on in the episode.
• That was a gut punch, but a very minor thing at the beginning of Episode 3 hit me even harder; I realized that a certain decision I'd made, which I was sure had been the right one, resulted in an unquestionably negative outcome. Not only was the tragedy that closed out Episode 2 not actually beyond my control; the much smaller one that opened up Episode 3 was very much entirely due to mistakes I'd made; had I never existed at all, the Episode 2 tragedy absolutely would have occurred, but not the mishap to begin Episode 3. Wow! Gut punch.
• The game grows darker and more unsettling as it goes on, and this is no easy feat; usually resolving some of these sinister mysteries takes the edge off of them, but not so here. By the same token, I can't say that the game stuck the landing, narrative-wise. It may have started reaching just a little too far somewhere in Episode 4, and Episode 5 was largely this time-bending nightmare vision sequence spent jumping between timelines - not even realities, as some of this was Lynchian nightmare fuel for the sake of Lynchian nightmare fuel. It worked beautifully - always love when a movie or a game can really convey what it is to have a "bad dream" - and some tweaked game mechanics worked well too, but allow me to say that, after how connected I felt to the rest of the narrative, the mystery, the small town, what have you, the ending just felt kind of "eh, alright, so that's how they were always going to play this?"
• Once I finished playing the game, my immediate course of action was twofold: one, look up how the game would have played out differently had I made a few different choices at major junctions. (Plenty to discuss here, but only with people who've beaten it already - Trev won't be long, and I know this is something Sween would enjoy!) And, two, start reading up on all the fan theories - not from after the game's conclusion, which was fairly unambiguous, but all the speculation people were doing back in 2015 when the game was only two, then, three, then four episodes old. It's crazy to see, with just a few months' hindsight, how easy it was for the fanbase at large to predict a few things and then also how out there and absurd some theories ended up being. Such is fandom in the age of the Internet - poor George R.R. Martin probably isn't capable of shocking his bookreaders anymore when it comes to A Song of Ice and Fire, as virtually every possible outcome is something fans have predicted after inscrutable analysis.
• So yeah, this game's not perfect. The ending isn't terrible, or even really bad - just a bit safe and predictable. And in a story-based game, a lackluster ending is enough not to consider this one of the all time greta games I've played. Still! I liked it a lot, and I liked how unique it was and I loved all the things it tried to do and I really loved how well it succeeded at so many of those things.
• Two big criticisms of the game were the lip-syncing and a perceived abundance of terrible teenspeak. On the former, I'll just say, yeah, it's pretty bad - but why are you playing video games for the lip-syncing? On the latter, I have to disagree. The characters in the game - high schoolers or college freshman, it's never exactly made clear, but they're all 18 or 19 - sound for the most part like I think "kids these days" actually sound. Probably far less insufferable, actually. My youngest sister just got out of college and she and her friends have some remarkably, extraordinarily weird, dumb, original turns of phrase. No self-respecting adult should want to play a video game full of kids who talk like high schoolers talk.

Check this out! That's really all I've got. For all I've rambled here, I still don't think I've been able to describe or convey just what it is this game gets right and how it makes you feel.

Goat Simulator

When I got my PS4, one of the first things I did was peruse lists of downloadable games in search of some quick, cheap content. Gotta build up that library quick, you know? Backlog be damned. I nearly pulled the trigger on Goat Simulator, one of the dumbest games I've ever seen, but balked at the ten dollar price tag. Eight bucks and I just might have. Five and I probably would have.

But I'm glad I didn't, because hey, wouldn't you know it, just a few days later Goat Simulator was announced as one of the Xbox One Games with Gold for the month of June. I downloaded it earlier tonight, dicked around with it for a few hours, and can now safely say that there's really no reason for anyone to go out of their way to acquire or play Goat Simulator.

The game is described as a "physics playground," and that about sums it up. Yes, it's hilarious and stupid to fling a goat around at traffic, people, and gasoline canisters in order to rack up points in a Tony Hawk-like manner, but there's only so much carnage one goat can create. Thankfully the game came with all kinds of "cheat" toggles - giving my goat a jet pack, for one - and instead of getting stale after twenty minutes or so, the appeal here may have lasted a full hour. I went twice that long, mostly in pursuit of a few pesky achievements, and now that I've boosted my gamerscore by, oh, a hundred points or so, I think I'm good with Goat Simulator.

Stan's Movie Dump: May 2016

Alright, let's mix things up a bit. There's this website - or at least a British magazine that has a website - where they review movies with three separate scores. Lots of professionals review lots of things in this manner, sure, but what makes Little White Lies stand out is that the categories are "Anticipation," "Enjoyment," and "In Retrospect." Their argument for these ratings, which I think they've been using for ten years, is that the three categories encompass the totality of the audience experience in a way that breaking a movie down into different elements doesn't. For instance, say you're rating a movie based on "Acting," "Production," and "Story" - what do you do with a movie that suffered in all three of those aspects but that stood out for other reasons entirely?

"Anticipation" is, roughly speaking, how much hype or excitement you had going into a movie. "Enjoyment" is strictly how entertained or interested you were for the duration of the movie. And "In Retrospect" is the extent to which the movie stays with you after it ends. Obviously these are all entirely subjective ratings, and yet it's clear what each one means.

I like the idea here, so I'll shamelessly borrow it, at least for this movie dump, and who knows? Maybe it'll stick. Little White Lies uses a 5-point scale for each category and I see no reason to shy away from a full-scale format lifting. Enjoy!

Cloud Atlas

Anticipation: 3 - Always wanted to see this one, but wanted to read the book first and waited three and a half years to do so. The book underwhelmed - though if anything this made me want to see the movie even more. Nervous heading in, but also very invested.

Enjoyment: 4 - Three-hour run time, occasional subtitles, full attention necessary at all times. If this was slow or uninteresting at any point in the first hour or so, I'm sure I'd have tuned out. But I didn't! Actually pretty thrilling from start to finish - though that's one perk of telling six stories in parallel.

In Retrospect: 3 - Some of the action sequences will stay with me, and there's no denying the unique feel of the movie overall, but much like the book I fear the movie hasn't successfully left me impressed in a lasting way. The coolest scenes in the movie feel like the kind of stuff the Wachowski sisters pull off in every Sense8 episode.

Best in Show

Anticipation: 2 - I'd seen a few other Christopher Guest movies and even bits and pieces of this one; more or less knew what I was getting into.

Enjoyment: 3 - Short and funny with nary a misstep. Toyed with giving a 4 here, but somehow I can't go that far. Maybe because I was already familiar with the movie and its best lines and scenes? I dunno. Feels like I'm underselling it with a 3, but, 3.

In Retrospect: 3 - Proven staying power as a cult classic but completely inconsequential in a bigger sense.

Captain America: Civil War

Anticipation: 4 - I find the endless onslaught of formulaic Marvel movies tedious as all hell and I rarely want to see these movies in theaters, or even at all. All the same, I'd been oddly excited about this one for several months.

Enjoyment: 4 - Excellent! Twelve distinct superhero characters and each one felt fleshed out. Plus a plot that made sense and wasn't too contrived. The ending couldn't quite bear the weight of the stakes and philosophical tension the film had built up, but kudos to a Marvel movie for having stakes and philosophical tension in the first place.

In Retrospect: 4 - A fight scene at an airport sets a new standard for PG-13 superhero movie fight scenes, but the whole thing feels more like a chapter than a story. That's the blessing and the curse of tying two dozen movies across ten years into one continuity, I guess. If nothing else, this is the sequel The Avengers deserved.

Rugrats in Paris

Anticipation: 1 - Scene: Mothers Day, family gathered in the living room for a lazy Sunday. After perusing the On Demand options for ten minutes or more, my sister put this on in the background, probably thinking something like "this will be funnier than just turning the TV off." No one cared enough to turn the TV off and just over an hour later the movie was finished.

Enjoyment: 2 - Minimal attention paid. Nothing too cringeworthy here, but also nothing good.

In Retrospect: 1 - Neither the first Rugrats movie nor the last. Beyond that, who cares?

Look Who's Back

Anticipation: 2 - A German movie about what might happen if Hitler just sort of showed up in the present day. I'd heard of the book, and gave this a shot on Netflix one night.

Enjoyment: 2 - Subtitles play a lot better with drama than with comedy, and the tone of the movie was never really clear to me. Was this Idiocracy? Was it Borat? The joke/scare here is that after everyone initially laughs off fish-out-of-Nazi-Germany Hitler, a few people start to realize he has some good ideas about what to do about all the - [looks left, looks right] - Muslims. My biggest question is how much of the pro-Hitler anti-immigrant sentiment coming from man-on-the-street interviews was scripted or at least loosely guided, and how much was the real deal? Same sentiment either way, but obviously a much heavier gut punch to modern Germans (and the rest of us) if this was fact, not fiction.

In Retrospect: 3 - At one point, I shit you not, the Hitler character claims he will "make Germany great again." This was filmed two years ago. The movie ends with a montage of real-life newsreel footage of Islamophobic protests around Europe while Hitler, surging in popularity as he begins a political campaign, says to himself, "I can work with this." Yikes!

Wow, only five movies this month. I love it!