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Showing posts from September, 2022

Review - Death Note (2007-2008)

         Hey guys, Chuck here. With HallowScream kicking off this Saturday, I thought it would be fun to take a look at my personal favorite anime series Death Note . Based on the manga created by  Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the Death Note anime aired in Japan from 2006 thru 2007, and in the United States from 2007 thru 2008. The series aired stateside on the Adult Swim block on Cartoon Network. The series was produced by Madhouse Productions and dubbed in English by Viz Media.          The series opens with the Shinigami (God of death) Ryuk dropping his Death Note into the human world on a whim, as life in the Shinigami realm is dull and boring. The book lands in Japan, where it's picked up by high school student Light Yagami. Light lives with his parents and younger sister, and. His father, Soichiro Yagami, is the detective superintendent of the local police force. Light, upon investigating the Death Note, decides to test out the power of the book by writing the name of a cr

Review - Enchanted (2007)

           Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, as promised during my breakdown of the trailer drops and announcements from this most recent D23, here is my review of the 2007 Disney film Enchanted starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Idina Menzel, Timothy Spall, and Susan Sarandon.             So, the movie starts off in the land of Andalasia, which is pretty much every single kingdom from any Disney animated fairy tale ever. Andalasia is ruled by an evil queen named Narissa, who will lose her throne when her stepson, Prince Edward, gets married. So, Narissa is pretty much obsessed with ensuring that such a thing never happen. Ultimately, however, Edward meets and falls for a maiden named Giselle, and the two are set to be wed. Narissa ultimately shoves Giselle into an enchanted well, sending her into the live-action world, where she ends up smack in the middle of Times Square. Lost and very confused, Giselle wanders the streets of New York, up until she is saved by Robert, a la

Review - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)

          Hey guys, Chuck here, and we're back with another game review. This time, it's the 2017 Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild , which is currently available for the Nintendo Switch.           So, the game is, like most Legend of Zelda games, set in the realm of Hyrule. You, as the player, take control of Link, who awakens in a place called the Shrine of Resurrection, only to find Hyrule in utter ruin. Apparently, one hundred years prior, Link was the appointed knight sworn to protect Princess Zelda, daughter of King Rhoam, using the power of the Master Sword. The people of Hyrule also made a startling discovery regarding an ancient evil known as Calamity Ganon. It seems that this monstrosity once attempted to utilize the power of Malice to bring the world to utter ruin, but was stopped by the highly advanced Sheikah race of old. The Sheikah had developed massive machines known as the Divine Beasts, as well as robotic guardians, later dubbed Ancient Gua

Review - Clerks III (2022)

           Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, here it is, my review of Clerks III, the third film in the Clerks series, and the latest entry in writer/director Kevin Smith's View Askew franchise. This movie sees the returns of Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes, Walt Flanagan, Marilyn Ghiliotti, Rosario Dawson, Trevor Fehrman, and Kevin Smith, with appearances by Amy Sedaris, Justin Long, and a slew of others.             Okay, so it's been a while since the ending of Clerks II, and Dante Hicks and Randal Graves are the co-owners of the Quick Stop. One day, while getting into a debate with their employee, Elias, Randal suffers from a near-fatal heart attack, and Dante is quick to call for an ambulance. After life-saving surgery, Randal has a revelation about his life, and the direction it has gone in. After a chat with Dante, Randal decides to make a movie about his life. So, with Randal writing and directing, and Dante producing, the two set out to make a movie, featuri

Breakdown - D23 2022 Announcements, Reveals, and Trailers

           Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, the first two days of the D23 Expo have bore some real fruit for us fans of Disney. And there were a number of release confirmations, cast reveals, trailer drops, and so on. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this year's event, so I wasn't able to see all of the stuff that was held exclusively in Hall D23. However, I CAN give my thoughts on what information was published online, so that what I'm going to do. So, here we go.         Let's start with Disney live-action. First off, we got a brand new trailer for Hocus Pocus 2 , which releases later this month on Disney+. Expect my review of that next month during HallowScream . We also got our first trailer for Disenchanted, which is the sequel to the 2007 film Enchanted starring Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey. Disenchanted debuts this November on Disney+, and I definitely plan to review the first Enchanted some time this month, just to have my review out there before the sequel arr

Review - Clerks II (2006)

          Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, we talked about the original Clerks yesterday, so today, let's discuss Clerks II . But, before we get into the movie, let's talk about some other goings on with Kevin Smith's filmmaking career at that point. After the release of Clerks, Kevin Smith teamed up with Universal Pictures to release Mallrats , which is my personal favorite Kevin Smith from, and one that I plan to review at a later date. After that, he re-teamed with Miramax, the studio that released Clerks , for his film  Chasing Amy , with Lionsgate releasing his film Dogma,  and Dimension Films releasing his 2001 film   Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back . Initially, the plan was to finish out the View Askew franchise with that particular film, with Kevin going to work on other projects, such as the ill-fated Jersey Girl , and it was just around the release of that film that Kevin was offered the chance to direct a film adaptation of the comic book The Green Hornet.  Unfortunate

Review - Clerks (1994)

            Hey guys, Chuck here. Next week, Kevin Smith is releasing his latest film Clerks III , and before I give my thoughts on that movie, I thought I might take a look at the original 1994 film Clerks starring Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes, Walt Flanagan, Marilyn Ghiliotti, Lisa Spoonhauer, and Kevin Smith.             So, the movie introduces us to Dante Hicks, who is a convenience store clerk working at the Quick Stop in Leonardo, New Jersey, and is called in on his day off because the guy who's supposed to open the store that day called in sick. While reluctant, he's convinced to open because his boss will take over at noon. Dante heads in, opens the store, but has a problem: someone jammed chewing gum into the locks for the steel shutters. This is the in-universe reason for the shutters being closed, because in real life, director Kevin Smith, who was an employee of Quick Stop at the time, was only permitted to film at night when the store was close

Review - Pinocchio (2022)

         Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, today is Disney+ Day, and as part of it, Disney released their live-action remake of the animated classic Pinocchio onto Disney+. And now that I've just finished watching it, I have some definite thoughts.             Okay, so this movie, which was directed and co-written by Robert Zemeckis, is basically beat for beat a re-telling of the story of Pinocchio , from both the original animated classic and the Italian fairy tale it was based on. A woodcarver named Geppetto carves a marionette out of pine, calls his creation Pinocchio, and after wishing upon a star, Geppetto's wish is granted by the Blue Fairy. Now moving and talking his own, Pinocchio has a slew of adventures with his conscience Jiminy Cricket in tow, and his adventures include performing in Stromboli's puppet show, traversing to Pleasure Island, which is a cursed amusement park that turns children into donkeys, and eventually saving his father from being devoured by a sea mo

Review - The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)

            Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, I just finished watching the first two episodes of Amazon's new series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,  and I gotta say it's pretty good. Don't get me wrong, there's still a ways to go before the season wraps up, but I definitely enjoyed the first two episodes. And that got me to finally get off my ass and take a look at the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, which ran from 2001 to 2003. Directed by Peter Jackson, this highly ambitious film trilogy starred Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Miranda Otto, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Karl Urban, David Wenham, John Noble, Ian Holm, Bernard Hill, Brad Dourif, Andy Serkis, and Sean Bean.               Okay, so the story is a long and tiring one, so I'll give my best summary. Okay? Here we go. Long ago, in the land of Middle-Earth, there was the forging of the gr