Populasian

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Hereditary - 宿怨

Hereditary (宿怨) is an 2018 horror film. The movie stars Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro and Gabriel Byrne. The movie falls within the horror genre.

The plot from the trailer is that the family has many family secrets and that the brother sister pair try to fit into society in the state of Utah. There's a family secret and it will come back to haunt them.

This movie is within the horror genre and rightfully so. This film is more of a drama thriller than a slasher type movie a la Halloween. There are super natural elements that you have to subscribe to for the story to move on and an understanding of the occult stereotypes.

If you like occult type movies shrouded in mystery, you may like this film. I watched this via my T-Mobile Tuesday Redbox free rental. At the moment, it is available via Amazon Prime.

Sunday, January 6, 2019

Bumblebee - 大黃蜂

Bumblebee (大黃蜂) is an 2018 film. The movie stars Hailee Steinfeld and John Cena. The movie is part of the Transformers universe, but takes place in 1987. Which brought back a bunch of nostalgic moments as I grew up in the 1980s.

On Cybertron, the Autobots have lost the advantage and much flee to regroup in order to try to take back the planet from the Decepticons. On of the pods flees to earth but is chased there. Upon entering earth, it causes a bunch of damage and the military forces are there to take it down, but when the two sides of transformers fight, it causes lots of destruction. Bumblebee goes into hiding as a VW bug from the 1970s. When Charlie Watson, played by Hailee Steinfeld, finds it, the adventure begins. First is the bond that they form and the eventual huntdown by the Decepticons. When that happens, the military forces get involved and things get complicated.

This is by far the best of the Transformers movies. I would dare say that it will go down as a classic in the coming years with many even thinking it really is an 80s film. Travis Knight does a great job of taking great elements of the 1980s and incorporating them into a modern 2018 film. A really fun watch.

Hailee Steinfeld started in True Grit (真實的勇氣) years ago as a teenager and has blossomed through the years. I hope Hollywood give her the chances to shine, she deserves it and owns the screen.

I am hoping that this installment makes enough box office monies to continue their new storytelling direction.

Saturday, January 5, 2019

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse - 蜘蛛人:新宇宙

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (蜘蛛人:新宇宙) is an 2018 animated film based on the character of Spider-man. The movie takes place in the spider multi-verse, multiple dimensions of Spider people. The character are voiced by Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Brian Tyree Henry, Nicolas Cage, and Liev Schreiber.

Miles Morales is a Brooklyn-ite that's going to a magnate school but feels like a fish out of water there. Miles is also bitten by a radio-active spider making him similar to the Spider-man of his universe. When Wilson Fisk tries to open up dimensions, Spider-man is there to stop him, while Miles stumbles on the fight and gets involved. When the activation goes wrong, multiple Spider folks from other universes appear in his. In order to prevent their destruction, they must go back to their own universes to stay alive. Thus the team of spider folks team up to go back to their universes. But they have to go through a series tasks to make all of these things happen.

This movie was pretty fun watch. I will say that even though it was geared as a teenage flick, their were enough adult elements to keep this oldie engaged. I also liked the various takes on Spider folks. I watched this in the theatre with my daughter and she loved it. Of course, she's a teenager.

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Star Trek Beyond - 星際爭霸戰:浩瀚無垠

Star Trek Beyond (星際爭霸戰:浩瀚無垠) is an 2016 film. The movie stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, and Anton Yelchin. This is the third installment of the rebooted Star Trek from 2009 and it's sequel Star Trek Into Darkness. This is also one of Justin Lin's few movies outside of the Fast & Furious film franchise.

Kirk is having a mid life crisis and tries to find meaning in life. Spock seems to be going through some things too. As are the rest of the crew. When they go out for a recovery mission, but everything goes wrong and they get stranded or captured. They must rely on some locals that turn out to be mystery Starfleet crew from long ago that disappeared. When all is said and done, can they all survive and stay together?

I must say that the third time around, I wasn't so interested in their story. I think Justin Lin got dealt a raw deal from Abram's camp. The movie flopped as a result. But its Star Trek, they are successful and than flop and come back again. There's enough of a message in the franchise to keep it going.