The blog of author Stacy Kingsley

Are There Any GOOD Movies Out There???

3/22/2018

I know it has been a while since I wrote a blog, but either I've been in a funk or there hasn't been a lot that was interesting to me out there in movie land.

Now, I'll be honest, I haven't really felt like going out a lot, partly because it has been freezing cold where I am, and I am just tired of being cold and spending all of my money on warm drinks. However, there also seems to be a good movie freeze, or the movies I am interested in seeing are not appearing in theaters near me, or for very long. For example, I really wanted to see the movie WINCHESTER. Do you want to know when it was playing? 10pm at might. Now I am a night owl, but I also have to wake up at 6:30am to go to work, so I am sorry I am not going to get my butt out of bed after getting home at 12:30am and be happy to go to work that day. I am usually not happy to get up at 6:30am, I'm not going to push it.

Where are all the good movies at? It seems that all the movies being put out are either remakes (DEATH WISH) or weird romantic movies, or something that is just not a type of movie I am interested in. I mean the last good movie I saw was BLACK PANTHER and I thought it was okay, not great, but okay. I hated the ending. It was dumb. And I hated the ease of what happened to Claw, that was stupid too. I know my opinion is one the the few about the movie, but hey, I wasn't a fan of WONDER WOMAN either.

So, someone, tell me what's good out there! I feel like I am falling behind in my movie watching. I've been catching some good television, like, JESSICA JONES, ALTERED CARBON, 9-1-1, and catching up on MAJOR CRIMES. In fact, I still get the DVD's from Netflix and the next movie I'm getting is KEDI (so super excited!!!!). I mean a movie about cats... HELL TO THE YES!!

Anyway, enough of my ranting. If you have any good movies I should see, in the theaters, on streaming, or on DVD please share them with me! I am so bored and need more movies to watch!!!!

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Movie Review - BLACK PANTHER

2/24/2018

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Did I enjoy BLACK PANTHER? Yes. Did I think it was the best movie in the Marvel universe? No. Did it live up to the hype for me? No.

Now don't hate me for my opinion. I felt the same way about WONDER WOMAN. So many people were telling me I'd love it and I really thought it was only okay. Everyone should know what this movie is about, but if you don't this is taken from IMDb: T'Challa, the King of Wakanda, rises to the throne in the isolated, technologically advanced African nation, but his claim is challenged by a vengeful outsider who was a childhood victim of T'Challa's father's mistake. It is really so much more than that though. It was a romance movie with action and family drama, in a place that doesn't exist, but in an Africa that does (yes, the entire continent of Africa).

While the movie has a lot of great cinematography and acting, I thought the plot of it was a little lacking, and it could have used some good editing. For me there was too much backstory, and I wasn't sure why I should care. I don't want backstory unless it is being developed to make me feel for someone later in the movie, or push along my views of a character. BLACK PANTHER flipped too much and didn't stay with one character enough for me to feel anything, and the ease of the end of the bad guy they were chasing from the beginning of the movie seemed a little too defeating and easy, it added nothing and was unnecessary. I don't think it should have happened as easily as it did, nor do I think the end of the movie should have been as flat as I felt it was. How easily does a man go from saying, we should keep Wakanda a secret, to let's go to war with the world! It really didn't make sense, and neither did it make sense that this same man would turn against his friend so easily because of someone who came in and said something that didn't at all make sense.

There were so many characters, and there wasn't enough of a focus on one or two to have much story development. I would have liked to have the film focus on four of the characters, T'Challa, his sister Shuri, the head of the female warriors Nakia, and Erik Killmonger, a young man with a goal to help his people, but not quite in the right way.

BLACK PANTHER was a fine film, but I feel as if it didn't live up to the expectations I had based on what everyone was saying after they had seen it. I'd also like to say, it isn't the first movie with an African-American superhero, but it is the first movie with a full cast of African-Americans who move the film along, which is pretty cool. So I will honestly give it that for being interesting and including an almost exclusively African-American cast, but was it a great movie or the best in the Marvel universe? No, it was a-aight. I honestly enjoyed the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 1+2 better, partly because the focus was limited, and partly because it didn't seem to try so hard at explaining all of the characters important to that movie with the backstory of the marginal characters being forgotten. We know nothing of why there is a king over the entirety of these different groups, nor do we know why some are treated different that the others.

Now, the last thing I want to say is that the character of M'Baku, played by Winston Duke, is great and I would have liked him to have some more screen time. His character was funny and serious and absolutely fabulous. He was given some of the best lines and scenes and his character was underused in a film where he could have been used more adeptly.

So, go see it if you like, most people seem to like it more than I do. I think I am maybe a little biased, partly because I was a little hesitant to believe the masses chanting "it was the best movie ever" like they did for WONDER WOMAN, which was not the best version of WONDER WOMAN I feel we could have had.

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Movie Review - WONDER WOMAN

10/7/2017

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I finally saw WONDER WOMAN, and it was just okay. I will be perfectly honest and say it wasn't as fun as the first IRON MAN movie. After I watched IRON MAN I couldn't wait for the next one, but with WONDER WOMAN I was like, that was fun, but I am not anxiously waiting for the next film. I don't know if it was because as an origin story it was just meh, or if maybe Wonder Woman is just meh to me as a character, but it didn't grab me.

As a concept this movie was fun. I did enjoy watching it, but I felt that there was a lot that could have been changed to make Wonder Woman a different and enjoyable character, instead she was kept in the same stereotype as most women, tight clothes showing off her figure, high heels, and an innocent persona.

Diana seemed to know a lot when she left her island, but there seems to also be a lot she didn't know. If she could read a twelve volume book on the ways to pleasure a woman and sex she should have been able to learn more about life in general. Instead, she seemed too innocent about a lot of things, while having a surprising amount of knowledge of other things (and this seemed to be added in just for comic relief). Also, I was annoyed that when she got undress and was in a somewhat classic version of the Wonder Woman costume she was wearing high heels. I wondered why she was forced to wear high heels, when a better choice would have been a nice and comfortable pair of flat boots what would make more sense. There were many things like this throughout the movie that bothered me.

She also seems constantly surprised that she has special powers, which was also unrealistic to me. After she learns about one power in a practice battle she never uses it again in the movie, even while fighting with the god of war. I mean Tony Stark has become something of a huge asshole, but at least he understands his abilities. Diana's mother doesn't even tell her daughter things she might need to know when she is leaving the island and entering a land and time she has know understanding of.

One of the other huge issues I had was Trevor. While I don't think Chris Pine is a bad actor, I felt he was playing Chris Pine through a lot of this and some of his comrades were much more interesting than he was. Plus, why did they feel the need to make Pine and Gadot the same height when they were dancing? I mean we all know Pine is a tiny little man, so why not keep that as part of the story, since Wonder Woman is technically an Amazonian woman? It all frustrated me.

Of course, with all of this being said, I still enjoyed the movie, I just don't feel like it lived up to the hype. And while I do look forward to the next one, I could care less if I see it in a theater or not, and I doubt I will go out of my way to watch it. It wasn't a bad movie, it wasn't a great movie, it was an okay movie, and I can say I've watched it, so that is life.

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Are There Any GOOD Movies Out There???

Movie Review - BLACK PANTHER

Movie Review - WONDER WOMAN

Stacy Kingsley

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