Spot Reviews 12/20/24
Dec 20 2024
(BTW I named it "Spot Reviews" after Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying use of "Spot Rules" to denote optional rules. Although now that I try to look for an example I don't find any so either I'm misremembering or it's archaic enough that I don't have PDF rules that have it.)
Dial S For Santa (2023) [+] A nice little Hallmark channel Christmas romance movie. Insurance investigator Lana (Sarah Dugdale) visits her hometown in time to get embroiled in a mystery as there have been several recent robberies. Her help is unwelcome by the new police detective Nick (Julian Haig) but he eventually gives in and lets her help him. Romance ensues. It's a safe and charming story.
Prospect (2018) [/] Small science fiction film. Teenager Cee (Sophie Thatcher) and her father are independent miners that go to a planet to mine for this liquid you get from certain plants. While there Ezra (Pedro Pascal) and his companion try to rob the two and after a shootout only Cee and Ezra survive. They are forced to work together to find a way off the inhospitable planet (humans can't breathe the atmosphere) and as they make their trek they run into a cult that wants to "buy" Cee and then mercenaries who have a sudden need of miners… It's a character drama about Ezra and Cee and their interactions. Though Ezra caused Cee's father's death he regrets the necessity and is a rather practical rogue who by the end is a bit of a new father figure.
Splash (1984) [/] Allen (Tom Hanks) meets a mysterious woman, Madison (Daryl Hannah), who can't speak English until she spends a day watching television and who apparently loves him out of the blue. But she's secretly a mermaid who saved his life when he was a young boy and apparently fell in love with him then. After her secret is revealed to the world and she's taken by the government to be studied and dissected Allen has to search within himself whether he can love a fish-girl… This is an ok film. I contrast this film with Mannequin (1987) which I think is better because there both of the leads have significant characterization. In Splash though Madison is not that well developed as a character so she pales compared to Allen. Although that just means Splash is more a story about Allen than Allen and Madison.
All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku (1998) [-] Half hour episodic Japanese anime. Nuku Nuku (Allison Keith) is an android with the brain of a cat who is trying to assimilate as a normal high school girl whilst battling the machinations of the megacorp Mishima Industries. Each episode is hijinks usually ending in Nuku Nuku battling some giant machine or monster and it's nice that Mishima Industries is trying to conquer the world by building great and gigantic consumer products that unfortunately tend to go haywire and go on destructive rampages. I watched the first 8 episodes on Amazon Prime Video which shows them in a converted size so that the top and bottom are cut off — tall people's heads are cut off and there's often writing at the bottom introducing characters and that also gets cut off and is not translated in any case. The viewing experience in APV is quite bad and the show is a bit too kids-only humor. Animation is not that good considering it's 1998 but maybe that's APV not the original animation.
Dial S For Santa (2023) [+] A nice little Hallmark channel Christmas romance movie. Insurance investigator Lana (Sarah Dugdale) visits her hometown in time to get embroiled in a mystery as there have been several recent robberies. Her help is unwelcome by the new police detective Nick (Julian Haig) but he eventually gives in and lets her help him. Romance ensues. It's a safe and charming story.
Prospect (2018) [/] Small science fiction film. Teenager Cee (Sophie Thatcher) and her father are independent miners that go to a planet to mine for this liquid you get from certain plants. While there Ezra (Pedro Pascal) and his companion try to rob the two and after a shootout only Cee and Ezra survive. They are forced to work together to find a way off the inhospitable planet (humans can't breathe the atmosphere) and as they make their trek they run into a cult that wants to "buy" Cee and then mercenaries who have a sudden need of miners… It's a character drama about Ezra and Cee and their interactions. Though Ezra caused Cee's father's death he regrets the necessity and is a rather practical rogue who by the end is a bit of a new father figure.
Splash (1984) [/] Allen (Tom Hanks) meets a mysterious woman, Madison (Daryl Hannah), who can't speak English until she spends a day watching television and who apparently loves him out of the blue. But she's secretly a mermaid who saved his life when he was a young boy and apparently fell in love with him then. After her secret is revealed to the world and she's taken by the government to be studied and dissected Allen has to search within himself whether he can love a fish-girl… This is an ok film. I contrast this film with Mannequin (1987) which I think is better because there both of the leads have significant characterization. In Splash though Madison is not that well developed as a character so she pales compared to Allen. Although that just means Splash is more a story about Allen than Allen and Madison.
All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku (1998) [-] Half hour episodic Japanese anime. Nuku Nuku (Allison Keith) is an android with the brain of a cat who is trying to assimilate as a normal high school girl whilst battling the machinations of the megacorp Mishima Industries. Each episode is hijinks usually ending in Nuku Nuku battling some giant machine or monster and it's nice that Mishima Industries is trying to conquer the world by building great and gigantic consumer products that unfortunately tend to go haywire and go on destructive rampages. I watched the first 8 episodes on Amazon Prime Video which shows them in a converted size so that the top and bottom are cut off — tall people's heads are cut off and there's often writing at the bottom introducing characters and that also gets cut off and is not translated in any case. The viewing experience in APV is quite bad and the show is a bit too kids-only humor. Animation is not that good considering it's 1998 but maybe that's APV not the original animation.