Ratings Central - Movies

I have stated before that drama is simply not my favourite genre of movie. However, I do find myself watching more and more of these movies as I grow ever older in life. Beautiful Boy is a movie about drug addiction and how it affects a family, specifically in this case a father and son. Though I won't be rating this film as high as many other film-critics have, it was a good movie overall. Being a father myself, I was easily drawn into Steve Carell's (the father's) shoes as to how I might react if one of my children were quite literally throwing away their life. The family moments were very touching and I loved Steve's performance. I was curious to see how he would do in a serious film as I've really only seen him in comedies. He absolutely nailed the role. The film has some issues for me though. My first real problem was the way Timothée Chalamet's character Nick (the son) seemed to only have his addictions while he lived with his father. He moves in with

Halloween. Easily one of my favourite horror franchises. I've been a fan through all the twists and turns Michael Myers' backstory has taken throughout the decades. I love the Shape. I always have. I remember the first time I saw the original Halloween. The terror I felt, the almost awe I was in due to the soundtrack. The Shape truly scared me, especially when he broke through the closet door, proving that he'll do anything to get his victim. This new edition to the series is set 40 years after the first movie, basically saying the others don't exist. And, I'm ok with that. None of the movies after the first captured the magic of the original. They all have their strengths, but they also all have more weaknesses. From explaining Michael's family lineage to the cult of the Thorn, all the way to those dastardly remakes, I stayed true and kept watching. With the 2018 release basically retconning all the sequels and Blum House Productions being involved, I had hi

Although drama movies are not my main genre, I do still thoroughly enjoy them. I like a good cry sometimes, or to really feel a movie hit you in the gut, or question who you are or how you view the world. From the raving reviews I've read and heard about Eighth Grade, I assumed I was in for some of what I love. That just didn't end up being the case. Eighth Grade is a story about a young adolescent girl's last week of middle-school (for us here in Canada, Public School eighth grade) and the trials and tribulations that come with that, or so the synopsis would have you think. It is about the last week of school, but the girl really doesn't go through a whole lot. She's not ridiculed in school or in public, she's not beaten, abused, neglected, forgotten. Sure, she's an outcast, but she's not even bullied in school. There are two different times throughout the movie that I said to myself, "Ah here we go. Something is finally going to happen," the

I grew up reading comics. All kinds of comics, but my favourites were always Spider-man. I always found that the villains seemed to hold more weight in those comics. The Green Goblin, Tombstone, Doctor Octopus, and of course, Venom. Venom for me changed how Spidey had to fight and deal with a villain because Venom held most of the same abilities as Spider-man, and more. But, he was also so much more violent than most villains Spidey had to fight. But, this is about Venom, not about Spider-man. The Venom most of us knew from the comics is not in this movie. That doesn't mean that it's a bad movie, let's get that out of the way right now. It's just... Not what you might expect from Venom. There are certainly hints of that creature throughout the movie. There were many times where I thought, "Oh yes! He's going to bite this guy's head off" and... then the camera cuts away. You still knew it happened, but it really lost the feeling of how vicious and bruta

Being the old man that I am, I grew up playing Rampage in arcades, Commodore 64 and NES. Later on, there was also a few other adaptations like the more popular one from the Nintendo 64. This movie I was kinda' afraid for as not only is it a video game adaption movie, but it's based on a game that doesn't really have a story behind it. For those of you that are not familiar with the game, three creatures, George the ape, Ralph the wolf and Lizzy the lizard, grow to gigantic proportions and destroy city after city. That was basically the premise being Rampage until the Nintendo 64 version where they introduced the creature's backstories and the main villain. The movie seemed based loosely (very) on this version of the game, understandably. I went into the movie expecting a simple blow 'em up, destroy the monster kind of movie, but was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. More and more I found myself thinking about the characters involved, feeling for the anima

Welcome to the Ready Player One NON-SPOILER review. This movie was a hard one for me to critique. It suffers from what I'll call the bi-polar syndrome of movie making. It has extremely great parts and extremely poor parts, or extraordinary weird segments. Before I really get into it, let's get one thing straight. I did NOT read the book, so my review is specifically based on what I saw in the theatre and not what I know about the story. I loved the themes and story of this movie. You will hear from a lot of people that this is a video game movie, and that is incorrect, kinda'. The plotline focuses around a video game, yes, but most of the pop-culture references are from 80's movies. Yes, there are video game references as well, but tons and tons of 80's movie and TV shows show up here. One thing I enjoyed about the movie as a whole is the references all had a purpose; they were not shoe-horned in as I was afraid they would be. From the trailers, you see things

Ah, Star Wars The Last Jedi. To say this movie has caused a divide in the fandom of the Star Wars franchise is easily an understatement. Before I get into my full review here about this movie, I need to get a few things clear and out of the way. These things may save you time, as depending on who you are, you may stop reading right now. 1. The Last Jedi has been out sometime now. As the title says, this is SPOILER FILLED. If you have not seen the movie yet, I advise you see it before reading this blog as many, many key parts of the movie will be given away here and discussed thoroughly. 2. I liked this movie. This means according to the internet that I "Can't be a true Star Wars fan", or that I'm "paid by Disney" for how I feel about it. Trust me, this guy ain't paid by Disney, or Lucas Film, Industrial Light and Magic, or even YouTube as the channel hasn't even had enough views yet to make pennies from Google. I liked the film. I will tell you w