Welcome to Gracie Mae DeLunac's life, via the computer. This is where you'll see updates on my stories and whatnot. I'll post when I can about what new stuff has occurred in my mind, in the world, and whatever goes. Benvenue, everyone!
This is an anime show review for "Good Night World". This show was released October 12, 2023 on the Internet. I watched this in January 2024 on Netflix with Japanese audio, English subtitles.
Trailer
Cast
Unsure of which were the Japanese voice actors/actresses.
Plot
A game developer name Hojiro Arima created the world of PLANET. He also created his own character and joins the game, forming a party of four with none other than his IRL family - his two sons, himself and his wife. They have issues (emotional, grieving, trust issues, etc) in the real world but enjoy playing the game with each other in PLANET. The one rule that they have is to never ask each other about real life, so no one knows that they are an actual family IRL as well as in the game.
Something happens that changes the PLANET world: the end-game boss "Black Bird" shows up at their house in PLANET. The prize to defeat the Black Bird is 300 million yen. So all guilds and players want to go after it, but there is a trick to this ultimate boss: it is a virus that can kill you.
Can they survive? Where is the edge of reality? Can they figure out how to be a family in real life? What does it mean to "be human" or "alive"?
Rating Criteria
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the show.
5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful show all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.
4/5 - *SPOILERS*
This was an interesting show. It kept me on the edge and was very intriguing. However, I was wondering why they put the game developer into the game. Except for in Sword Art Online, I have not seen another game developer actually want to play in his/her own game. That seemed different and strange to me. Also, how did his assistant know that his real family was part of his in-game family but he didn't know?
The ending of the show was a bit vague because, like Taichiro said, "isn't is strange that we never found the bodies of dad and Kamuro?". He also saw the Red Dragon briefly at the end and paused for a minute. He said "sh*t" then walked away, with what looked like a glitch in the system at his back. Does this mean that the PLANET/Earth fusion didn't go away? Dad had said that both Asuma and Taichiro would be okay living in the fused world but he couldn't. Did dad only take himself out of it? There is a suggestion that this could be the case, since the fusion happened without putting on gear and therefore would not need the gear to be removed. Either way, the ending is not definite [kind of like the movie "Inception" playing with your mind wondering whether the main character actually got back or not because the top didn't fall over].
Anyways, I enjoyed this show. It is graphic - a character's head gets squished to her death, dad's legs get sliced off, etc. (When the character got her head squished, I was thinking "ELFEN LIED!!!!!!".) But it makes you think about what AI can actually do, what technology might accomplish/destroy in the future, and what creates humans [memories/feelings/thoughts are just electrical processes in the brain].
If there is a second season eventually, I would be interested in it. Would I be up for the manga? Maybe, but not right now.
Is it for everyone? No, definitely not. If you're squeamish, stay away. If you don't like sci fi, stay away.
That's my show review. Thank you for reading! More reviews to come eventually.
This is a movie review for "Event Horizon", released August 15, 1997.
I know I am not caught up to my movie reviews but a friend of mine wanted me to watch this ASAP so I could watch something he was doing with the content of this movie. So I watched this January 16, 2024 and am writing the review now (ahead of all of the ones I haven't written yet over the last 3-4 years....). It doesn't mean you won't get those reviews, so don't worry!
Let's get at it!
Trailer
Genre
Space Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi, Horror, Thriller
Cast
Laurence Fishburne - Miller
Sam Neill - Weir
Kathleen Quinlan - Peters
Joely Richardson - Starck
Richard T. Jones - Cooper
Jack Noseworthy - Justin
Jason Isaacs - D.J.
Sean Pertwee - Smith
Plot
Humans like to explore and expand as far as they can by any means possible. Exploring space is no different. Why not find a way to go faster than light? When humankind's first faster-than-light spaceship (the "Event Horizon") disappears out of radio range and comes back seven years later, humankind wonders what happened. Is the ship functional? Did the crew survive? Why haven't we gotten any feedback from the experiment? Did they actually travel to a place beyond our galaxy? Is travel-faster-than-light sustainable?
To answer all of the questions, Dr. Weir (creator of the faster-than-light hyperdrive) teams up with a search and rescue team [the crew of the "Lewis and Clark"] to go to the orbit of Neptune and to see what information they can get from the "Event Horizon".
Rating Criteria
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.
5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.
4/5 - *SPOILERS*
This movie is not for the faint of heart.
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie but there were things that bothered me significantly, which dropped the rating down from 5/5 to a 4/5. (It dropped from 4.5 to 4 as I wrote the review because of all that bothered me...)
Let's talk about the bad.
First off, we are never told much about Dr. Weir. He tells us that he created the hyperdrive of the Event Horizon but no science mumbo jumbo explaining how he did so or how he got the technology to do so. Pretty much said "I'm going with you because she's my baby". Generically speaking, if someone creates something, that person puts his/her intentions into it and it affects how something works. Like if you had good intent, it most likely will be well intended. But considering how the ship turns out, did Dr. Weir really have good intents?
You can argue that it is "just a ship" and intentions do not matter but we have seen many science fiction vehicles with sentience: the TARDIS from Doctor Who, Moira and Talon from Farscape, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from the movie of the same name, etc. True, not all of these can talk or communicate or express themselves like humanoids can but they change to deal with situations, get themselves out of dangerous situations, etc. So was the Event Horizon sentient before the 7-year disappearance? They never gave us an indication about it but I doubt it, since there was no mention.
The reason I bring up the sentience of the ship is because of one point where Starck said that the ship was trying to get rid of them like parasites and when Miller said that he was going to blow the ship up, the ship routed power away to find a way to deter him from doing just that. Sentience? Possibly. From a hellscape? Unsure how these two work with each other.
Secondly, whatever was on the other side of the gateway was never explained. Justin got a look into it when he stupidly got pulled through the gateway. [He totally pulled a Dr. Daniel Jackson move from "Stargate" the movie by touching the event horizon of the gateway. Yes, Stargate called the surface of the gateway the "event horizon" so is that how the ship got its name in this (Event Horizon) movie?]
"Event Horizon" : Justin and the Core
"Stargate" : Dr Daniel Jackson goes through the Stargate for the first time
Anyways, we get small glimpses at what might be on the other side of the gateway but there is no definite answer. Something caused and is causing the humans on board to want to be violent, self mutilate (claw/pop their eyes out?!), rape, murder, etc. It has something to do with the other side of the gateway, supposedly, but there is no definite answer. Again, the question of the ship being sentient comes up regarding whether the ship is causing this chaos or if something from the other side is causing this? There is no answer. We just have to take it as is.
I personally find this hard to accept because I want to know the reason behind it. If everyone's acting like reavers from the sci-fi western show "Firefly" (kill, rape, skin, and eat and lucky if in that order), then just say something like the Firefly show says "they got out to the edge of the universe, saw the black nothingness, and went bibledy over it". I can accept the madness from the darkness, or actually going mad because there is nothing past Neptune except rock/space, but essentially saying "we broke the rules of science, bent space, went somewhere we shouldn't have gone (which was a bad place?), and lost our minds" just isn't enough for me. Show me the other side and not just in hints and glimpses!
Thirdly, Dr. Weir is a dick. Why didn't he give them a "here's the layout of the ship" explanation before they got to the blasted ship! Or did he want this to go badly? A simple "this is what the ship does, how it works, don't put your hand into the gateway" would have gone a long way.
Fourthly, who was this chick Dr. Weir was seeing? I think it was supposed to be his wife, but they never give a good clarification on her. She pops up randomly and for nearly no reason, except him seeing her committing suicide in the bathroom and her (though dead and maybe a hallucination?) saying "it's okay, you're with me now". He then gouges his eyes out. Like wtf is with you, dude?! ...serious plot issues if Dr. Weir was supposed to be a level-headed scientist. 🤦♀️ Again, if we had known more about him prior.....
I guess the biggest issue to understand this movie is Dr. Weir. If we had known more about him, how he created the ship/hyperdrive, who that chick was, and if he had warned the crew about the dangers, then this movie would have been much easier to understand or to flow. But I guess one could argue that is the genius of this movie - the unknown isn't just on the other side of a gateway but can be right next to you.
Let's talk about the good.
- This movie pops up after the Alien franchise had already released their third movie, but this movie had more special effects than Alien, Aliens, or Alien³. The technology behind this movie is amazing. It was spectacular for a late 1990s film: CGI for fire, floating fluids, etc.
- It keeps you interested, and on the edge some. Watch out for the jump scares!
- The design of the gateway / hyperdrive was beautiful. Unfortunately we didn't get to see it actually working, but the spinning discs and the core had so much intricate details that it was mesmerizing to look at.
- The design of the Event Horizon ship gave me Klingon vibes but meh. I guess it was slightly necessary for the middle bridge thing to explode later.
There's not much more I can say about this movie. I personally am shocked that I had never watched this before now. I rank it high on the sci-fi scale, but still am disappointed by lack of some information. (At least Ripley told the soldiers in Aliens what they were going against, unlike Dr. Weir about this ship in this movie!)
It was interesting watching Dr. Grant from "Jurassic Park", Morpheus from "The Matrix", and Lucius Malfoy from "Harry Potter" work together in this movie. 😆
Do I recommend? Yes. It is definitely not for everyone, considering the gore, suicides, and brutality, but could be a decent watch for those brave enough.
That's my movie review! Thank you for reading. More reviews to come soon.
This is a movie review for "A Civil Action", released December 25, 1998. We watched this October 20, 2020.
Trailer
Genre
Drama
Cast
John Travolta - Jan Schlichtmann
Robert Duvall - Jerome Facher
Tony Shalhoub - Kevin Conway
William H. Macy - James Gordon
Zeljko Ivanek - Bill Crowley
Bruce Norris - William Cheeseman
John Lithgow - Judge Walter J. Skinner
Plot
When children start developing childhood leukemia in a local town, the town starts to ask questions and demand a fix to the problem. Eight families ban together to file a civil lawsuit against a factory nearby that is making their water contaminated and unusable. Can they get justice? Can they fix their water?
Rating Criteria
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.
5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.
4/5 - *SPOILERS*
This is based on a true story about a water aquifer being contaminated in Woburn, Massachusetts in the late 1970s. The case (from what I can see) lasted into 1990 after everything was dealt with, including appeals.
"1982 lawsuit accusing corporate giants W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods of contaminating the waters of Woburn, Mass."¹ with "the issue of trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent, and its contamination of a local aquifer"².
Anyways, this is a long drawn out battle of a few families with a few lawyers going against a corporation with a plethora of lawyers. The partners fighting for the families start going broke because they aren't paid through the lengthy process and it causes tensions between the partners.
I had the biggest issue with the ending. It wrapped up fairly well, especially for being a "based on a true story" tale. The issue I had was the fact that they didn't really tell what happened between the main lawyer and his ex-partners, but it did tell the verdict that the case eventually came to.
The ending (don't watch if you don't want a spoiler):
Aside this one point, it was a good movie. It has been over 3 years since I watched it, and honestly I have forgotten about it by now so it took me a while to research to recollect, but it was good. Not super noteworthy or one to really remember, but decent. Worth it? Go for it. It isn't as action packed as a Mission Impossible movie, obviously, but not a waste of time (especially if you like case solving things and court hearing stuff, and justice, etc).
That's it! Thank you for reading. More to come in the future. Still about a dozen left to write for movies watched in 2020. ^.^'
This is a movie review for "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" (aka "Borat 2"), released October 23, 2020. We watched this on the release date of October 23, 2020.
Trailer
Genre
Comedy
Cast
Sacha Baron Cohen - Borat Sagdiyev
Maria Bakalova - Tutar Sagdiyev
Plot
Borat, after finishing his first film about America, returned home to Kazakhstan. He was judged for his film about America and somewhat shamed. After a while, the President of Kazakhstan gave Borat a new mission: go back to America and bring a gift for someone of high importance. The catch is that the monkey they were going to bring didn't make the trip so his daughter (stowaway) will have to be the substitute for the gift. Considering Borat's background and Kazakhstan's ways, can he manage to get through the USA with his daughter? Can the gift be given safely? What could possibly go wrong?
Rating Criteria
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.
5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.
4/5 - For the year 2020, this was the funniest movie I had seen up to the end of October. The year had been rough and this was a mockumentary about life and COVID-19, not just about the United States. Would it be suggested to watch now that COVID-19 is mostly in the rear view mirror? I'm unsure about that but it is a cheesy/funny/stupid movie that was perfect for the time that it was released.
For a stand-alone movie, I would say that the first Borat movie was better than this one. This one did give a flashback/update at the beginning so all could (somewhat) understand the character's background but watching the first one would make it easier to understand. That being said, it was okay as it's own movie (as a second).
Watch at your own risk, especially if you get offended way easily.
