With the end of the year around the corner, and all big releases (both actual and assumed) having been released, I wanted to look back at what I saw theatrically and how I felt about how they performed and why. And I would like to see what you all felt about these same movies. Unfortunately I never got to see either Barbie or Oppenheimer but I'm glad they both performed successfully and that the year in whole wasn't made up of just laughing stock financial flops. I'm most certainly enjoying The Marvels falling flat on its face.

I will say though that my views on some of the films I saw may have been more softer than I normally would have been considering I went with my GF to see them and she loved them. Either that or I have become less scornful overall but I doubt that is the case.

Godzilla Minus One: I hate to say it, but Yamazaki made a far more compelling and visually impressive film than Anno did with Shin. The character story felt like it complimented Godzilla well instead of just butting heads with Goji like the Legendary films tend to do. With its miniscule budget and performing well financially, this was a huge wake up call to the West with their money-laundering levels of wasteful spending.  10/10

Wish: This movie was bad. Not incredibly bad, or massively bad, just generically bad which I think is worse. The art style was absolutely beautiful...and that's about all I can really say it had going for it. The little Easter Egg references were nice I guess, but I felt they were more put in by committee demand than put in for genuine artistic expression (and on that note, Doc is a really obvious and out of place director self-insert) and it kind of taints the whole point. For a movie that's supposed to celebrate the company's 100th, this is embarrassing. 2/10

Elemental: Ironically, Elemental was a far more sincere and enjoyable film despite it initially being advertised to me as generic Pixar slop. The social commentary and themes actually felt genuine and despite constantly looming over the runtime, it didn't detract from the comedy or other light-hearted moments in the story. It wasn't very visually impressive though and it was kind of generic, but at least it felt like what I said before: sincere/genuine. 8/10

The Little Mermaid: I didn't have an interest in going to see it and I was basically dragged to the theaters because I dragged her to the next movie. I don't care enough about it to review. ?/10 (probably very low)

Shin Kamen Rider: Tokusatsu Kino. I want to give this movie a perfect 10/10 but it suffers from Anno's usual problem of live-action with awkward shots/angles. His style works very well in Anime but it transfers very poorly to live-action. He somehow made it work with Shin Godzilla and it "kind of" worked here, but there were still scenes and entire sequences that suffered cause of it. 9/10

Shin Ultraman: Another movie I wanted to give a perfect score to, but surprisingly this one suffers even more from Anno-syndrome despite not even being directed by him. The entire pacing of the movie is awkward jarring and the movie straight up feels like its ending twice before the actual climax. The story was good, but it feels rushed and that along with the quirky directing choices, I struggled to get behind it. 7/10 (but it should realistically be 6/10)

the Haunted Mansion: I completely forgot this movie existed and that I went to go see it. It definitely felt more genuine to the ride than Eddie Murphy's version, I feel both are trying to accomplish different things with the 2023 version trying to be more faithful while the original trying to be a better film (which I think it is), the story for this one just felt kind of lost until halfway through when the Hatbox Ghost is revealed. But the fact that I straight up forgot I even saw the movie doesn't bode well for how others might feel about the movie. 6/10

The Super Mario Bros. Movie: I know there was a lot of back and forth about this movie leading up to its release. And as someone who has a pretty negative bias towards Nintendo (I just bought an OLED Switch a month ago) I must admit this was a pretty enjoyable movie. The story was simple/generic but not eye-rolling which might seem like a subpar thing to say but I do realize this is a movie for kids first and foremost; the visuals were surprisingly really good, and the performance from the actors were top notch. I don't want to call this movie perfect, I know its a kid's movie but there isn't much for adults to latch onto unless your one of those Gen X Nintendrones who don't believe other video game companies outside of Nintendo exists. But I just can't find anything truly bad yo say about it. 9/10

How was the year for you all at the movies?

Oppenheimer and TOP GUN were movies I was proud to go see in theatres.   






If you read more into his life his went into a coma during the sixties.  He went out thinking the world was ending.

Mario was enjoyable, can't wait for the cross over with Sonic.

Sadly it seems I've reached that age were I'm too busy to go to the cinema.

Interesting to hear The Marvels was a flop financial wise, could this finally mean the slow but sure decline of Marvel after 23 years?

I'm not sure if you'd like Shin Godzilla. The characters are very quirky and the actors really lean into it, but it also has some very weird cinematography and of course I remember all the comments on how "ugly" Godzilla was in it. Although it does do a great job of being an allegory for the Fukushima Disaster more than an atomic weapon, and there's a looming fear of another bomb being dropped in the story that hangs over the heads of the characters if they can't solve the mystery. I also feel the atomic breathe scene in Shin was better than it was in Minus One.

Godzilla Minus One: Never got around to watching Shin Godzilla (seemed weird to me), so I really appreciated a grounded Godzilla story, closer to the original. The WWII setting was a nice touch to retain the allegory. Wasn’t quite a slam dunk for me. I feel like I have trouble with Japanese media, such as anime. Some of the overacting got a bit goofy, especially with people in the audience laughing. 7/10

Watched "The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" yesterday, fell asleep through the first ½ of the movie, that's how boring it was.

The remainder was meh, just passable enough for me to stick through until the end.

I got around to watching the Puss in Boots film.  Western animation has come along way.  I very much enjoyed the "Spiderman" style fight animation