My Two Blessings

  November 2 :  It's non fiction November! When I told my husband I was planning on reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, he said it’s fiction. I disagreed but when I looked it up, found a variety of opinions and the main consensus is Zen is a fictionalized Autobiography in which the author took creative license with the subject matter. *sigh* And hubby hated it when he read it way back when. Thank you for bursting my bubble. I’ll make up my own mind what I think of the story when I read it. A few people who shall remain nameless have fooled me in the past with their so called  autobiographies which turned out to be fictionalized and resulted in me tossing their books across the room in disgust. However, there is literary nonfiction or creative nonfiction which I love to read which uses literary styles and techniques similar to fiction but is actually based on fact to tell a story, rather than a dry tome regurgitating facts. I finished rereading Nina San...

  Mama mia, everyone! Its-a me, the Crazy Video Game Wizard, and we're here to talk about THE SUPER MARIO BROS MOVIE from Illumination/Universal & Niiiiiiiiiiintendo! As you all remember, back in the 1990s, during the near-height of Mario's fame, Nintendo gave Hollywood the license to make a Mario movie. In 1993, SUPER MARIO BROS starring the late Bob Hoskins as Mario and Dennis Hopper as King Koopa was released to the world... and it failed. It was so infamous, Nintendo never attempted movie adaptations again. But during the 2010s, as they worked on a theme park with Universal, the desire to make a Mario movie was rekindled. Collaborating with Illumination Studios, with Universal as the distributor, Nintendo worked on the new animated Mario film with Chris Pratt as Mario and Jack Black as Bowser and Charlie Day as Luigi. In April 2023, after years of work, the movie was released and made billions of dollars despite being negatively received by critics. Oh, and it was well-...

  Welcome back, everyone. Today, we're here to review this comedic movie involving Nazis and World War II called Jojo Rabbit, loosely based on a book called Caged Skies, and the story is pretty simple: During the Second World War, Jojo Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis), who confides in an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler (played by the film's director Takia Wattiti, joins the Hitler Youth and, after recovering from an injury, he discovers a Jew named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) hiding in the house. As it turns out, Jojo's mother (Scarlett Johansson) is an anti-Nazi, and, the more Jojo interacts with Elsa, his patriotism towards the Third Reich begins to diminish. At one point, Fake Hitler launches into a frightening triad to Jojo, telling him how Germany relies on the passion of valiant young men and that its up to him to decide if he wants to be remembered by history or disappear insignificantly. While it is set during one of the roughest times imaginable, Jojo Rabbit is a fun m...

  Ah, superhero movies. The greatest of our time, right next to sci-fi space adventures and war movies. You've seen Marvel movies, and DC movies, but to see a superhero movie that isn't associated with those two is quite rare. And then, we have the parodies, especially the Movie movie stuff. 2008 was a big year for superhero films. Iron Man came out, kicking off the MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE, alongside THE INCREDIBLE HULK, and then, there was THE DARK KNIGHT, the sequel to 2005's BATMAN BEGINS. And, among the many other superhero films, there's this movie... SUPERHERO MOVIE. Made by the same folks who made the SCARY MOVIE, er, movies, SUPERHERO MOVIE is a spoof of the pre-MCU Marvel films that were out at the time with some elements of DC. It spoofed Spider-Man, Batman, the X-Men, and you get the idea. The movie tells the story of Peter Parker parody Rick Riker, who gets bit by a dragonfly and, after being in a coma for five days, he learns that he has super powers. Aft...

  Hey, Godzilla nerds. I'm back to discuss a kaiju movie that is NOT a Godzilla film, but its still Japanese made. This movie is REIGO: THE DEEP SEA MONSTER, and you wanna know what makes it very special? As you know, kaiju movies like Godzilla or Rodan became known in the years after the conclusion of World War II, and monster flicks like these are usually set after the war. However, Reigo takes place DURING World War II IN THE PACIFIC THEATER. That's right, the crew of a Japanese battleship during the war battles a sea monster. Oh, and get this, the battleship is the YAMATO, which was actually a real ship. Excluding the opening of GODZILLA MINUS ONE, this is the first Japanese-made monster movie that takes place during the events of the infamous real-life conflict that led to the nuclear age which led to Godzilla's creation in the first place, and the plot is pretty interesting. At one point, while the ship's crew are fighting against Reigo, they team up with an Ameri...