Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Host/Scoob!


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In case you haven’t seen the intro from my entry dated 1/26/19 (it’s in my archives whenever you want to read it), I’m no longer going to review every single movie I see.  I’m going to review one, with the occasional bonus, and just give ratings for the rest from now on (unless I decide to pick it up again in the future).  You can always ask me why I gave the ratings for the films without reviews though (via comments or the e-mail addresses under the ‘About Me’ section).
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Host                                                                             OK
This recent Shudder exclusive is certainly relevant for these Covid-19 times, somewhat.  A group of people decide to conduct a séance via a Zoom call (I never even heard of Zoom until this pandemic) and are even warned beforehand that it's not the safest route to go about it (won't they ever learn in movies?).  One of them accidentally summons a demon and let's just say that things don't go so well for all involved thereafter (as is usually the case).  Beforehand, I read somewhere online that this was Unfriended meets Paranormal Activity (or something along those lines), and that's pretty much what it is, complete with a jump scare at the very end much like the latter, meaning it's not so original.  It also felt longer than it should've been even at only 56-minutes.  You could do worse though, I guess, but you can also do better in roughly an hour.  7/31/2020



Scoob!                                                                         B
I am a fan of Scooby-Doo, more so when I was younger, but I still like watching the animated movies that I have yet to see so many of, and hopefully that’ll eventually be rectified.  This recent animated film begins as an origin story in modern times (signifiers---smartphone, Velma’s costume being mistaken for Harry Potter, Simon Powell playing himself) before becoming a regular Scooby-Doo mystery that didn’t feel like a Scooby-Doo mystery at all.  I hated this movie.  Yes, I’m not a fan of modern animation, but I’ve learned to accept (or understand, more appropriately) that being the new reality (while still getting the occasional Klaus) and might’ve been able to overlook that aspect if the movie was actually any good.  There were two parts I liked---the bowling balls and bowling pins transforming into monsters and the abandoned amusement park scene---but they were minor bits in the grand scheme of things and I couldn’t help but imagine those same scenes looking better with traditional animation (meaning hand-drawn).  The majority of it had too much action, in the sense it bored me more than entertained me, while, again, not feeling like a standard Scooby-Doo film.  I’m not sure what was worse, this or the two live-action films released in 2002 and 2004, but I do know that this film didn’t work for me, at all.  8/3/2020



Other movies I've seen and their ratings (see above):

1917  >>>G

We Go On  >>>OK/G


---Sean O.
8/4/2020

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