AdmiralBlindMan79 Reviews

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Ghostbusters done right!

[9/10 · 24 August 2022]

After the fouled-up flop that was the 2016 reboot Ghostbusters, this film I enjoyed so much better. Like compared to that POS 2016 film, this film was easily 500% better. That is how bad the 2016 film was and is.

Lots of touching moments at the end paying tribute to Harold Ramis, the original Egon Spengler, and lots of funny parts in it that made me feel like an 10yr old all over again. No sexist humor, no man-bashing. Hell, I loved that they cast a wonderful young lady to play the granddaughter of Egon. And that her character, Phoebe's, mannerisms were just especially reminiscent of Egon, that alone was worth the price of a movie ticket.

To me, it felt like this film was perhaps passing the torch to a new generation that will take the franchise to new heights. I gave it an honest 9/10 rating. There were some cheesy jokes, but I still laughed, and the story remained consistent leading back to the first Ghostbusters film of the 1980s.

Do yourself a favor. Skip the 2016 pile of dogturd, and watch Afterlife instead. You can thank me later!

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)

Ghostbusters P-Ew

[1/10 · 24 August 2022]

Okay, so when it was announced that this would be an all-female team, I thought to myself, "Oh, this will be both different and fun!". Well, I was half-right. The film just completely stank from top to bottom. It was filled with man-bashing humor, sexism jokes (against men), and didn't really offer scientific approach to dealing with ghosts. Just a bunch of women having a "man-bashing" 2-hour marathon. Even my mother was disgusted by it.

And I haven't even gotten to the forced humor that WASN'T sexist. All in all, if I could give this film a negative number rating, it would be a -8. Who do I call for a reimbursement of those two hours of my life back?

Lilo & Stitch (2002)

Just like wine, it gracefully ages well!

[10/10 · 4 April 2019]

Ok, I'm not a kid, I don't have kids, and heaven willing, I'll never have any. That being said, this movie remains on hot standby when I can't find anything good on television. It's a well made story, excellent plot, & I love the DVD extras when Stitch was "interrupting" other Disney movies, especially the flying carpet scene in Aladdin.

If you had kids during the film's initial release, you may want to have them try watching it again. Through different eyes. I guarantee they'll see something else they hadn't seen prior. Or rather, they had seen differently as a child.

Overall, it's a very lovely story. Worthy of Disney animation films.

Futurama: Game of Tones (2013) Season 10, Episode 10

An excellently funny, but touching episode.

[10/10 · 18 June 2014]

**May Contain Spoilers**

When I first saw this episode, I was unprepared for the raw emotion at the end, but I'll save that for later. As usual, Futurama writers gave fans the humor we've come to know and love over the past 13 years (at the time of this review, Futurama had been canceled since September of 2013). We've gone from one ride to another with several versions of "finale" episodes designed very cleverly to allow for an opening in case the show somehow would get resurrected. The writers were especially careful to give fans the ability to occasionally laugh at the brilliant references to several of science fiction's greatest TV shows and movies, pay homages to shows long gone, and to celebrities whose fame had long passed.

That said, I very much thought this was going to be a play on "Game of Thrones". A show I've never seen, nor cared to see for any reason. It may have been a tribute to the HBO series, but to me I didn't see any real tribute to the show. If there was any, I didn't see any sort of references. If anyone would care to enlighten me, I'd be happy to discuss it another time, perhaps.

So, in an effort to get vital information to (once again) save Earth from terrible destruction at the sound of devastating tones destroying Earth's atmosphere, we get to see Fry having his brain tapped into by Professor Farnsworth's dream device inducing a lost memory that Fry somehow remembers the tones from.

This where it gets a little funny, a little weird, and a little sad. Again, I remind the readers there may be spoilers here if you have not seen the episode. We see our good pal Fry going about his last day on Earth in his memories as though he was living it out as normal, trying desperately to cherish every last moment, even if it wasn't particularly pleasant. He tries so hard to enjoy every moment that his friends from Planet Express, his co-workers, had to drag him away from his family home while trying to have a New Year's Eve (1999 to 2000) dinner. When he tries to re-enter, it is clear that Fry is saddened that he cannot ever see them again since he never returned home. We know this for a fact since Fry got accidentally frozen (by the hand of "Nibbler" who would later reveal this information in the future and admit fault) taking him 1,000 years into the future.

At the end, the conclusion is presented as sort of a minor deal. A fellow "Nibblonian" had lost his spaceship 1,000 years earlier during the moment Fry would get frozen in a cryogenic sleep. After hundreds of years searching, destroying planets in the process, they finally find the ship on top of a nearby building. What's interesting to note here is that Fry helps identify the correct sequence of music tones to reply to the devastating tones destroying Earth's atmosphere. At first, we the audience are left to believe that "Nibbler" will pay back Fry somehow, some way. We do not know when or how, but the Nibblonians are once again in Fry's debt.

Just before the final close of the episode, we see Fry fast asleep back at his shared apartment with Bender, and as he tosses and turns, he starts to dream about his mother. She's at the home sitting on their couch cheering on what I believe to be a football game. Judging from her "fan gear", I'd say they were Green Bay Packers fans, but I could be wrong. Fry wants to ask her something important and she responds with "There's nothing more important to me than to listen you, except after this game!" (or something to that effect). Calmly, she turns to him a moment later to address her son.

In a touching moment, Fry asks his mom if she ever thought about him after he was gone. For a brief moment after she answers, he quickly realized it wouldn't be possible for her to answer in his dream. A briefly smart moment for Fry, but this is where we see Nibbler enter the dream, and says to Fry that this was his race's repayment for the debt to Fry having her brief memories given to him in a dream. At last, Fry has closure with his family, and can now move on as he hugs his dream based mom, and wants to hold her forever.

I'm not a guy who displays emotions very often, but this episode had me rolling with tears as I thought about my own mother, and how I would deeply miss her when she's gone, or if I am gone and she's left here alone without myself or my older brother. It was a very powerful ending to an episode of a series that originally vowed never to take anything seriously, and here we are having a serious, but very emotional moment in an animated series. If you have loved ones, watch this episode with them, and have a tissue box at the ready. You'll need it at the end.

Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001)

A thought-provoking Star Trek series

[9/10 · 24 February 2014]

While initially in my teens, I found this series of the franchise to be quirky, there were episodes that totally intrigued my interest. I found the stories to be delightful, but sometimes I was confused by the main message of any given episode.

Later in my life, in my 30's, I gave the series another try like I did with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9), and like it's predecessors (both TNG and DS9), I found the stories to have a real-world parallel, even if some mistakes in continuity and goof mistakes made the stories less factual, but let's face it you don't watch a fictional TV series for factual information. If you want something like that, go to the E! network and watch "Keeping up with the Kardashians" or watch "American Idol" where they are claimed as "Reality TV". This is science fiction fantasy, and fantasy doesn't always give factual data. It is meant to only give you a spark of an idea to research, and eventually use in your own way, regardless of what your research comes up with.

Watching from a more experienced point of view, I can see how this series was seriously underrated, under-appreciated, and sorely misunderstood by Star Trek fans (old and new a-like). A female captain, with a divided crew (that eventually unites), and with a ship that eventually makes it home. Not exactly a "Trek" future we all like to think about. Some old school Star Trek fans might be hardcore in thinking only a male lead captain would be able to handle leadership, but I like to think that Star Trek challenged this stereotype.

Though it does have episodes full of connotations that apply to real-world situations that we can learn from as a society. I would only hope that in the 21st century, we might succeed in applying these lessons to our world, and eventually avoid some of the dire predictions made in Star Trek lore.