Sinners, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, The Princess & the Frog, and Francesco’s Ristorante and Stone Fire Pizza

My apologies for posting this an entire week late. There wasn’t much for me to discuss—at least what I remember or feel like needs to be shared in public. I’ve revisited some places for the first time in years (Blake Shelton’s Ole Red bar/restaurant on International Drive) and one night I went with dad and my aunt to eat at Francesco’s Ristorante and Stone Fire Pizza, a joint near The Villages-they had good food-there isn’t much to discuss.

Thus, now I have time to give my feelings on Sinners. The trailers sold me on the film and unlike the marketing, did not specifically mention the classical monster that was the film’s antagonist. Rave reviews were heard but my expectations were in check. More now than ever, most modern movies aren’t that interesting to me or are just overrated/just plain bad despite general consensus. Thankfully, Sinners not only met but exceeded my expectations.

I was on board the entire time. The 1932 rural Mississippi setting, the twins portrayed by Michael B. Jordan, the supporting characters, the plot, the big action finale, the score, the soundtrack, the new twist on that horror creature which was modern without feeling preachy, the subplots—I loved Sinners. The switch from drama to horror takes a long while but it doesn’t matter when I was so invested. All the main players in the cast impressed-would people be surprised that I hadn’t seen Hailee Steinfeld in anything before-she definitely was a highlight.

I’m glad Sinners is not only a hit among the critics but also moviegoers. This is the sort of big-budget movie I want from Hollywood instead of the nonsense I don’t care about: comic book films, many remakes or sequels or reboots, modern “humor,” agenda-driven filmmaking, etc. It’s a movie I give my highest recommendation to; what a masterpiece from Ryan Coogler.

On a sad note I was saddened that Steve McMichael passed away a few days ago. Of course I remember him playing for the Bears as a kid before he became a WCW wrestler. I saw him wrestle once at a show in Rockford, Illinois, where he beat Stevie Ray. RIP to him.

One last note: one night the 2009 Disney animated film The Princess & the Frog was viewed for the first time. While not perfect, it was still rather entertaining-speaking of quality music in a great setting. The main reason was that soon I was finally going to ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, which is basically a new skin over the old Splash Mountain ride. It is amazing that for decades Disney had a major ride which used characters from a 40’s film they won’t ever release on physical media or streaming—Song of the South has aged horribly since 1946.

Anyhow, it was only a few days later that I unexpectedly had the opportunity to ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. My opinion: yeah, it has less of a plot than Splash Mountain (unless you consider “Hey, let’s have a party!” to be a plot) and more than once there are screens displaying images rather than animatronics. That said, the animatronics present still looked nice and a big asset was that I dug the music which played throughout.

I’ll return sometime in May.

Ash, The Alto Knights, The Amateur, Princess Mononoke & Black Mirror

Yep, this will be another two-parter; the second will be posted sometime in the upcoming week, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. Here, what's been viewed theatrically will be discussed, along with yet another unpopular opinion I have: my befuddlement over why people like Black Mirror.

One night I saw two films in a row. First was Ash, a low-budget sci-fi effort which still looked rather good for its budget. The director was The Flying Lotus, a synth musician who had only done avant-garde films that I never even bothered with. Thankfully, Ash was rather traditional aside from some nightmare imagery. The story isn't the most complex yet the movie was still interesting and the sort of thing I was happy to support. The most famous names in the cast were Eiza Gonzalez as the lead, Aaron Paul, and Iko Uwais of The Raid movies fame.

The Alto Knights was sadly a boring, flat version of a gangster movie where for some reason, Robert De Niro played both the lead protagonist and the lead antagonist; yes, two different characters played by Bobby, for reasons that seemed to only be “it's a gimmick.” There were nice period songs from the 40's and 50's but otherwise, no surprise that not many other people went & saw the movie theatrically.

Princess Mononoke is a famous anime movie from Studio Ghibli in Japan that I saw on the big screen years ago. This time the viewing experience was on an IMAX screen. The movie is still excellent. Just a few days ago, I viewed The Amateur. The main reason was to compare it to the original. Yes, there was an original The Amateur movie, from 1981 that even film fans didn't know about. Turns out, the two share only a few things in common. The original (it and the remake are both fine, for different reasons) stars John Savage of The Deer Hunter fame; the most famous face in the cast was Christopher Plummer. The movie has a slow 70's style, which was fine with me.

The remake of course has a more modern pace and is slick; while not a must-see, at least most of the modern movie tropes that turn me off from modern movies are thankfully not present. It's a decent effort which is not a must-see yet isn't terrible either. What IS terrible: I now am subscribed to Netflix again, at least for the next few weeks. I viewed The Electric State, which was even worse than I imagined. Now there is an atrocious modern movie usually avoided by me.

Aside from their special interactive episode Bandersnatch-which was fun mainly due to its interactivity, I had never seen an episode of Black Mirror. All I knew was that it was a harsh take on the horrors of technology. Some negative reviews from presumed reliable sources were why I never gave it a shot despite how beloved it is by millions out there... but finally that changed. I chose White Christmas, mainly due to its high ratings. Well, perhaps that was a mistake as it was another special and an anthology of three different stories plus a wraparound.

Except from the first segment, I hated it! The tone and the stories as a whole were just not enjoyable whatsoever and in fact was agony to get through. If that represents the series as a whole, thank goodness I never bothered to begin with. Perhaps one day a traditional episode will be tried; however, I was so turned off by last night's experience, that won't be happening anytime soon.