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This week, I’ll be reviewing the Japanese stop-motion series “Pui Pui Molcar.” It’s a series of shorts, each one a little over 2 minutes, revolving around sentient guinea pig cars as they get into wacky adventures and help each other out of problems.

The show arrived on Netflix at the end of March, but originally aired on Japan’s TV Tokyo channel in the mornings beginning in January of this year. I watched the show on Bandai Namco’s official YouTube channel, where each episode was uploaded the day it premiered on TV, and remained available for a week. I’ve also seen other people re-upload the episodes after Bandai Namco took theirs down. After finishing its first season recently, the show has 12 episodes, so it’s an easy binge; you can watch the whole series in less than half an hour.

I did a little research on how this show was created, and discovered that it took a year and a half to produce the first season! It was created by director/animator Tomoki Misato when he was thinking about the annoyances that come with driving, and wondered what it’d be like if instead of cars, people drove around in guinea pigs. This is what sparked Pui Pui Molcar, which shows the misadventures of guinea pig cars including getting stuck in traffic jams, helping a friend overcome their fear of the car wash, and competing in a race.

Each Molcar has their own unique personality. The fuzzy cast includes tan-and-white Potato, who’s always willing to help out his friends, the tomboyish Teddy, who isn’t afraid of anything (not even a zombie apocalypse!), and white Shiromo, who’s always landing himself in sticky situations. There’s also a bunch of special characters that show up, like emergency services, a DJ, and even a time machine a la Back to the Future.

“Pui Pui Molcar” has a unique look to it, because the Molcars themselves are needle-felted. That’s something I haven’t seen a lot of in stop-motion shows, and I am 100% here for it. It’s cute and fun, and whenever I watch the show I just wanna reach out and touch the fuzzy guinea pig cars. The backgrounds for their crazy adventures are colorful and fun-looking, and it adds a lighthearted and playful feel.

As for the non-cavy characters in the show, like the drivers, they’re represented by tiny plastic figures when they’re not the main focus of the scene. When the camera zooms into the Molcars to show what the drivers are thinking or doing, they’re represented by real people (one of which is Misato’s sister), but they’re filmed in stop-motion to blend in with the rest of the show, which I absolutely love. It’s different, and it works perfectly.

There’s no dialogue, with the show consisting almost entirely of guinea pig squeaks and chortles (which are from a real guinea pig, not an actor) as opposed to talking. Although their eyes are black beads, the Molcars are super expressive. They show on their faces how they’re feeling, and will even cry and sweat to show emotion. This helps add to the easy-to-follow stories, and makes them even more engaging.

“Pui Pui Molcar” is visually appealing, and a short, fun watch. Not to mention it’s super creative; combining cars and guinea pigs sounds strange, but this show makes it work really well. There are so many fun adventures and stories to see. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes cute things, or has a guinea pig – I’ve heard stories of people’s guinea pigs squeaking at the TV when this show is on. I hope there’s a season 2!

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After only a week of release worldwide, Godzilla vs. Kong is already roaring its way into the box office overseas, having grossed $70.3 million in China during its opening weekend. The monster film released in the United States on Wednesday, and according to Deadline had a record-breaking opening day for the pandemic, grossing $9.6 million on its premiere date.

A follow-up to both Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) and Kong: Skull Island (2017), Godzilla vs. Kong takes place five years after the events of the former, with Kong living in a dome on Skull Island that’s monitored by Monarch, a secret scientific government agency established to contain dangerous monsters. Meanwhile, Godzilla unexpectedly attacks an Apex Cybernetics facility in Pensacola, Florida. The two monsters clash when the evil tech corporation formulates a plan to fight against Godzilla, which involves traveling to Hollow Earth with Kong to retrieve an energy source that will save the world from Godzilla’s wrath.

So, how was it? Well…it definitely lives up to its title, because you get to see Godzilla and King Kong beat each other up. Other than that, there’s not much else going on. The human characters don’t get enough development, and their conflicts aren’t really that interesting. They just kinda threw in a couple of new characters along with the preexisting ones to expand the Monsterverse. I will say that I loved Jia (Kaylee Hottle), a deaf orphan native living on Skull Island who – initially unbeknownst to her adoptive mother, scientist Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) – can communicate with Kong through sign language, and has a special bond with the giant gorilla that ends up being crucial to the story. The scenes with Jia and Kong were really sweet, and brought a sense of humanity to the monster, showing us that Kong just wants to go home (which he does at the end – Monarch moves Kong to an observation post in Hollow Earth, where he has free reign).

What about the two monsters the film is titled for? They’re really what the hype is all about, and it’s absolutely worth the excitement. The shots of them brawling it out underwater and smashing into skyscrapers are a lot of fun. I loved the aesthetic at the climax of the film, when they were in Hong Kong. The neon, futuristic look to the city set against the night sky was the excellent backdrop for this long-anticipated monster battle, creating lighting that was fun to look at, as well a color palette that went well against the monsters as they shot laser beams at each other and stomped around the city. This epic brawl was like the classic scene that comes to mind when I think of monster movies or kaiju: just a couple of monsters beating each other up in a big city.

My final thoughts on Godzilla vs. Kong? If you’re looking for an action-packed monster movie and think it sounds cool to watch King Kong and Godzilla beat each other up, then this movie is for you. Just a disclaimer, I watched the movie at home on HBO Max, which may have affected my viewing experience. Because it’s really about the action rather than human conflict, I’m willing to bet that my experience might’ve been different if I’d watched the movie on the big screen in a theater, as opposed to the TV in my living room.

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For this Film Review Friday, I’m reviewing the second season of the HBO Max original Close Enough.

I’ll start with a little background about the show. Close Enough is an adult animated sitcom created by J.G. Quintel (who’s best known for creating the Cartoon Network series Regular Show). It follows Josh and Emily, a couple in their early thirties, who are living in an apartment in Los Angeles with their six-year-old daughter Candice, along with their divorced friends Alex and Bridgette. Much like Regular Show, all of the episodes revolve around a small problem that eventually turns into a surreal, sci-fi-style adventure of large proportions. Like Josh joining a gym so he can be strong enough to pick up Candice, but it actually turns out to be an addictive cult.

The series premiered on HBO Max in July 2020, and got renewed for a second season less than a month later, which arrived on the platform on February 25, 2021. Two weeks prior, the series got renewed for a third season. It’s been met with mostly positive reviews by users on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, and IGN.

While it has a lot in common with Regular Show, Close Enough is for a slightly older target audience, skewing more towards Millennials than kids and teens as we watch the couple and their best friends/roommates transition from their 20s to their 30s. Like that awkward time period between spontaneous college life and settling down to start a family or career.

With that being said, let’s dive into season 2. With the last season setting up the cast of characters and getting us used to their personalities and quirks, I found this new season to be a little different. There were episodes focusing on the other characters in the show besides Josh and Emily, which I liked a lot. I got to see more of the other occupants of the duplex, including their landlord Pearle and her adopted son Randy.

One of my favorite episodes from Season 2 was “Cyber Matrix,” one of the two segments of episode 3. This segment focused on Alex’s refusal to get a smartphone, as he believed that it would become addictive. Sure enough, the quirky, washed-up community college professor ends up switching to a smartphone after his old phone breaks (with the selling point for him being that it has a calculator feature). When the virtual assistant ends up seducing Alex into a smartphone addiction so intense he’s literally connected to the phone, it’s up to Josh to connect to him via VR headset and bring him back to reality.

Josh and Emily’s daughter got her own episode as well, titled “Sauceface.” This was also one of my favorite episodes of the season, featuring the six-year-old starting an illegal hot sauce ring after the school cafeteria bans it so she and her friend can buy a drone.

I’m really liking Close Enough so far, and find it to be a super creative, funny show about growing up and becoming an adult. As someone who grew up watching Regular Show, this show almost feels like a spin-off (Quintel even confirmed that it takes place in the same universe), and it’s almost like this is what Regular Show grew up to become. It has that same witty, quick humor, and I love how it turns mundane, everyday situations into wild fantasy situations. I’m excited to see where this show goes in the future!

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I was never super into Tom and Jerry as a kid, but I was familiar with them and their slapstick antics. With Cartoon Network being one of my go-to channels for years, it was one of those shows I’d sometimes watch in the mornings while eating breakfast, or if I was out sick from school.

When I watched the trailer for the new Tom and Jerry movie, I was initially a little skeeved out by the lineless, three-dimensional visual style of the iconic cat-and-mouse rivals. I understand they were trying to do something a little different from their usual 2D appearance, but it reminded me more of one of those AR Snapchat filters than animation for a feature film. Regardless, I decided to give it a shot and see how it was, since I’ve always admired animation. There’s so many different ways to do it, from CGI to clay to hand-drawn mediums. Based on the vibe you’re going for, there’s often multiple approaches that can be taken – you can go for a darker, creepier style, or you could create something on the bouncier, more colorful side based on what type of story you want to tell. There’s nothing wrong with trying out a different approach.

In the case of Tom and Jerry, the film was a combination of live-action and animation, with the plot being set in New York City and all the animals, even fish and birds, being animated with CGI. The animation style they chose felt out of place set against the real-life backdrop of New York City, and it was too brightly colored. The characters may have looked better if they had been portrayed a more realistic, textured style, like the animation styles used in Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog. Pikachu and Sonic started out as 2D characters, but the way they appeared in those movies worked because they fit the environment they were in. Since they’re supposed to be furry animals, their 3D designs were made to look fluffy, and almost like you could reach through the screen and touch them. With Tom and Jerry, however, the animated creatures look like somebody placed them into the scene from a completely different film. They don’t blend in at all with their environment.

Among this colorful cast of animals is a group of pigeons (all voiced by director Tim Story) – credited as the “Pigeon Announcers” – who don’t contribute anything to the film other than performing a rap at the start of the movie and telling the audience what’s going on, even when it’s clear what’s happening. When it’s finally the day of the wedding, they fly up to the camera and explain that to the viewer, even though we had spent the last 20 minutes watching Kayla meet with the bride and groom to get everything ready for the big day.

The human characters in this film aren’t much better. The people in it are flat and boring, and have no personality. The main human character is young, ambitious Kayla (Chloë Grace Moretz), who talks her way into a job working an upscale, elaborate wedding at the swankiest hotel in the city by using somebody else’s resume. She walks into the hotel and scares a woman who’s applying for a job out of it, and then hands in that woman’s resume to the hotel staff, passing it off as her own and lying that she has all this experience that she doesn’t actually have. The movie delves a little bit into the bride and the groom’s dynamic, but it doesn’t really go that deep. Ben (Colin Jost) has visions of a big wedding, with the couple riding into the room on British-accented elephants, but bride-to-be Preeta (Pallavi Sharda) doesn’t see why it’s necessary for the couple to have all these things at their wedding, and just wants Ben to listen to what she wants. Why doesn’t she just talk to Ben? Who knows. We don’t really get to see much about the couple’s relationship, other than the fact that they don’t communicate about what they want. They don’t even open up to each other until the end.

So, where do Tom and Jerry come in? Even though the film is titled “Tom and Jerry,” it’s actually not even really about them. The two are more like side characters, as opposed to the stars. All they do in the movie is cause chaos by destroying the hotel and the wedding, as well as blowing Kayla’s cover, causing her to get fired from the job she never deserved in the first place. The slapstick humor that they’re known for doesn’t even last for half the movie. A teaser from last year shows us that they’ve left their home for some reason, but this is cut from the final film, so the audience is left wondering why Tom and Jerry are wandering around the city. What happened that made them end up here? Tom lives on the street making money by playing piano, while Jerry has a luxurious home living inside the walls of the hotel. When the kitchen staff (the head of them being played by Ken Jeong) discovers him, Kayla takes on the task of discreetly catching and getting rid of the mouse, so as to not ruin the hotel’s reputation or disrupt the wedding. Meanwhile, Tom is on the street and notices Jerry through a window, and pursues him, wrecking the whole hotel room. Kayla happens to be passing by and checks the room after hearing the commotion, and joins forces with Tom to get Jerry out of the hotel, reigniting the cat and mouse’s 80-year rivalry.

The jokes in this movie aren’t funny, either. I found myself cringing multiple times throughout the 101-minute film. A lot of the jokes were awkwardly delivered, or they just weren’t clever at all. One that stood out to me was when the couple first arrives at the hotel, and their dog Spike lashes out when he sees Jerry, to which Ben says, “I’m sorry, he’s a little animated.”

The film as a whole was disappointing and I didn’t find it to have any redeeming qualities. It didn’t have much in common with the traditional animated Tom & Jerry shorts, as it was focused more on Kayla and the wedding than on Tom and Jerry.

Tom and Jerry is being distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, and is available now in theaters, or free on HBO Max for the next month.

Growing up, I was always a fan of Bo Burnham’s work. His songs and poetry are so creative, and I loved his witty comedy style. Of course, when I found out he was making a movie that would be released in theaters in summer 2018, I had to see it.

What makes Eighth Grade so special is how authentic it is. It’s not about anything super crazy. The movie follows Kayla Day as she completes her last week of middle school. As a member of Generation Z, I knew how this felt – eighth grade is awkward, and can be scary sometimes. Kayla herself has a lot of . It’s also super realistic in showing life as an adolescent in the late 2010s, as the kids are shown to spend a lot of time on their phones and computers, mostly scrolling through social media. Although she gets voted “Most Quiet” in the yearbook, Kayla has a YouTube channel where she posts motivational videos addressing topics such as how to be confident; however, the videos get almost no views.

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Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010), directed by Edgar Wright, is a live-action film adaptation of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley. It follows 22-year-old Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), a bassist for a Toronto garage band called Sex Bob-Omb, as he tries to win the heart of mysterious Amazon delivery girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). However, this is no simple task – in order to get with Ramona, he must defeat her seven evil exes. At the same time, Sex Bob-Omb is trying to score a record deal by competing in a Battle of the Bands competition.

What I love most about this movie is how it’s fun to look at. They managed to maintain the cartoonish aspect of the comic book it’s based on with, most notably with the onomatopoeia words that pop up onscreen during the fight scenes. It even features some animated segments that use art from the comic, like when Ramona is recalling her time dating her first evil ex, Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha). It also gives off a bit of an anime vibe at certain points, like when Matthew Patel smashes through the ceiling of the venue during the competition and challenges Scott to a fight. Lastly, the soundtrack is one of my favorites. Beck wrote and performed all of the songs for the Sex Bob-Omb, and did well at replicating the scratchy, rough sound that comes to mind when you think of a garage rock band.

Despite all these positives, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was a box-office bomb when it hit theaters in summer 2010. Why? The only negative I can think of for the movie is that the video game references may not be appealing to everyone. The movie is filled to the brim with video game sound effects and graphics that teens and young adults who grew up gaming will get a kick out of, but people may not feel the same way if they’re not as familiar with gaming.

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Jojo Rabbit (2019), directed by Taika Waititi, follows 10-year-old Jojo Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) who’s growing up during World War 2. Young Jojo is thrilled to be part of the Hitler Youth along with his peers, but doesn’t quite understand what it means to be a Nazi. He’s mostly just enamored with Swastikas and the idea of being a Nazi, so much so that he even has Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi) as his imaginary friend. It’s a childish version of Hitler who’s somewhat of a father figure to Jojo, but the fact that he’s even there shows Jojo’s dedication to the idea of being a Nazi. One of Jojo’s first tests at the Hitler Youth training camp comes when he is called on to murder a rabbit with his bare hands, and refuses. It’s at this moment that he first questions whether the Nazi life is truly for him, as he doesn’t want to harm an innocent creature. Jojo ends up leaving the training camp early due to his injuries, and is shocked to discover that his mother is hiding Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), a Jewish girl, in their attic. There’s no safe way out of this situation for Jojo; if he tells on his mother, then she’ll get executed. Adolf pushes Jojo to maintain what seems at first glance to be a patriotic view, causing Jojo problems with his single mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), who is opposed to the Nazi party and the war. Over the course of the film, Jojo figures out what it really means to be a Nazi, and has to decide where he stands on WW2.

One of my favorite aspects of this film is its cinematography. It almost reminded me of a graphic novel. There were so many unique shots, for example when Jojo is rushed to the hospital after a grenade explodes at his feet. At this point it switches to a first-person perspective, showing us the world through Jojo’s eyes. Things appear blurry and dreamlike as he’s loaded into an ambulance and Adolf chases after him as he’s wheeled into the operating room on a stretcher. The cinematographer is Mihai Mălaimare Jr., who revealed in a Deadline interview that the distinctive camera shots were inspired by the film taking place in the world of a 10-year-old boy. Mălaimare recalls, “most of the time, [Waititi and I] talked about the fact that it’s really interesting to just go lower, and look [at] how the world or the set looks from Jojo’s height.”

My only issue with this film was that there wasn’t a lot of context for Jojo’s family situation. We know that he lives with his single mother, but it’s not explicitly mentioned where his father went. I didn’t know whether he was dead, supporting the war effort, or something else. It is also revealed that Jojo had an older sister, Inge, who died shortly before the events of the film, and Elsa pretends to be her when the Gestapo show up so that she doesn’t get taken away. However, we aren’t told a whole lot about the relationship that Jojo had with his sister, and we only see pictures of her. I realize that the lack of context about Jojo’s family was most likely intentional, but I was still a little confused at times.

Other than this, I found Jojo Rabbit to be a beautiful film that was quirky and creative! It’s sweet and funny at times, but also emotional. The relationship that formed between Elsa and Jojo was sweet, and I got a kick out of the fictionalized version of Hitler that lived inside Jojo’s imagination, eating unicorn meat and cheering for Jojo. It was also sad, because as the film progresses, Jojo is seen to realize what it really means to be a Nazi, and that it’s not all swastikas and “Heil Hitlers”. We witness him grow up and start to think for himself, with this epiphany being signified at the end when Jojo says to Hitler, “Fuck off, Hitler” and kicks him out of his bedroom window.

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            First off, to go on record, I would like to just simply put it out there that I loved this movie and don’t have many negative things to say about it. Even though I say that there are negative things, the movie builds a unique and well-spoken narrative and those things don’t mean much. ‘Onward’ tells a story about family bonding, but with a twist. After all, it isn’t often in movies that casts are full of characters made up of magical beings or creatures. Pixar movies usually consist of those things, but this is kind of new, even for them. The only issues I had with the film revolve around the fact that the plot seems a bit similar to other Pixar movie plots. This might just be because I am old enough to see a lot of consistent tropes in films, especially Pixar films.

            ‘Onward’ was, of course, going to be a film that was respected solely based off the talent that was brought in for the voice acting. With Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Octavia Spencer appearing together in the film, it was bound to do well. The credit for the movie’s success goes to everyone who worked on it as well, of course including director Dan Scanlon who joined Pixar in 2001 and most recently directed ‘Monsters University.’ The art and animation team working on the film are the ones who made it all possible and regardless of what anyone thinks of the plot, the movie itself is animated beautifully.           

There is not a single shadow of a doubt that the film wouldn’t be an artistic beauty of a film, because Pixar always improves upon their previous films. Either that or they keep up their standard that keeps them at the top of their game. The character design lends to the world around them, and that world is simply designed with its own atmosphere. A magical world where technology is the main way that people live their lives instead of actual magic is an interesting concept. With character design in mind, I think the casting was nailed down perfectly. The main duo of the film play off one another so well because their voice actors, Tom Holland and Chris Pratt, played so well off one another. Their brotherly dynamic feels like it is real and feels like it comes off the screen.

The dynamic between the two main characters ends up taking the film in a direction many may not have expected. I feel like this next bit will be a massive spoiler, so it is safe to bail now. While many may have expected the film to be about a journey for two brothers to find a way to see their deceased father one last time, it is actually a story about two brothers bonding on a journey they never would have expected to be on. Main character Ian, played by Holland, discovers that the people you have always known are more important than the ones you may want to know. This film is one that made me appreciate the story it told and the messages it was trying to convey. It will definitely go down as one of my favorite films from Pixar because it just felt like a good- heartwarming film by the end.

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Although I am a little late to the party when it comes to seeing ‘1917,’ I finally managed to go see the movie. Let me just say right off the bat that I thought that the movie was fantastic and deserves the praise that it gets. There is not a doubt in my mind that the film was something that a large number of people put their hearts into. Later in this review of the movie there are sure to spoilers, so be on the lookout.

‘1917’ is a film that does more than show us the grittiness of WWI, it shows the reality of what the war was like. For instance, in the movie, we see the two main characters played by George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman fighting their way through the battlefield, but most of the time all is quiet. There are only a few moments throughout the movie where there is actual fighting, but the rest is eerily familiar in a sense. Throughout the movie, there are a lot of quiet moments that are accentuated by the loud ones.

The thing about this film that I found most impressive is the fact that the movie is done in entirely one shot. The only exception to this is the part when the main character, played by MacKray, is knocked out while in a gunfight with a German soldier. The remainder of ‘1917,’ however, is done entirely in one shot. Not only is it stunning for that reason, but the movie has other visually stunning moments involving the music.

The film has a scene that takes place after the fight with the German soldier in a destroyed town, and the scene itself is a marvel. Simply put, the lighting for the scene is done masterfully through the use of flares. On top of that, the score for the scene is epic, yet eerie to reflect the fear in the main character and the importance of the mission he is on. Not long after that seen, we get to see another scene where he finds the battalion he is searching for in the woods and due to the music, we get to feel the same relief that he did in that moment. All of these things come together to give us an emotionally impactful movie that has us watching at the edge of our seats to see what happens next. I, simply put, loved the movie, and I hope others who saw it do too. If you haven’t seen it, then go watch it immediately.

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So, I am willing to admit that ‘Sonic the Hedgehog‘ was definitely better than I thought it would be. I know that it was made for kids to watch, but who are we kidding, it was a movie that was made to draw in a massive variety of people. For instance, kids are the most obvious targets to get seats sold out in theaters, then we have people who played the original video games that want to see how the movie is adapted comparatively, and finally we have people that simply want to see a video game movie. Video game movies historically haven’t done well, but this one is actually pretty decent. Spoilers ahead by the way.

As I just said, historically video game movies haven’t been responded to very well. These movies include ‘Super Mario Bros.,’ ‘Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,’ and the ‘Resident Evil‘ movies. However, that bad track record seems to have turned around a bit especially after last year’s ‘Detective Pikachu.’ ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ had a bit of a rocky start before the movie’s release due to the fact that the original Sonic design looked so terrible and nothing like the original character. Now, the character fits in much better with the entire aesthetic of the movie and surprisingly enough fits in well with the world around him.

To be honest the main characters, Sonic and Tom, played by Ben Schwartz and James Marsden, have a good dynamic, but is too much of a buddy cop style relationship. That is just in my opinion, but they did the characters well, especially Sonic’s sarcastic and relatively innocent attitude. Meanwhile, Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik portrayal was a unique take on the character that I feel like only Carrey can pull off. He pulls off the insanity angle of a mad scientist very well and creates a villain that we we expect given that this movie is based off of a game.

There are plenty of references to the game throughout the movie, whether big or small. For instance, the rings he collects are obvious and are meant to be a part of the plot, but things like the town they live in is called Green Hills, or a sign that says Hill Top. The name of Eggman being given to Robotnik is another reference. The music and sound effects are also very reminiscent of the original game.

Finally, I just want to cover some issues I had plus some final thoughts that I had on the movie. First of all, the creators of the movie did a few things to make sure that people knew who the bad guys were, such as literally labeling Robotnik’s lab as an “Evil Lab.” Yet again, I know it is a kid’s movie, but that seems a little excessive. I also feel like the plot of a good guy being hunted by the government for doing something good seems a bit overused. That aside, this adaptation was done very well, considering the premise of the games, they did it in a way that kind of makes sense by having the titular character be an alien from some far away place that uses ring technology to travel across the universe. I highly recommend that people go and see this movie for themselves to decide of it is a worthy adaptation. For more information on the movie, click here.