I honestly considered not reviewing The Matrix sequels during Pride Month. The original film is now widely accepted as a trans allegory--no doubt helped by the creators, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, coming out as trans women in the years since. But my goal was to at least try to watch them with a queer eye, so Pride Month is as good a time as any. Did I find overt queerness in The Matrix Reloaded? Well... not really. Drat.
ghosts
Haunting Me (2007)
I want you to know that there are times when I go above and beyond for this blog. Netflix has the Oh My Ghost films, a Thailand horror/comedy series starring a group of aging kathoeys--kind of like drag queens, kind of like trans women, kind of a third gender option... Similar to "baklâ" in the Philippines, which I talked about in the ZsaZsa Zaturnnah Ze Moveeh post. But I wasn't satisfied with those films, because there's a piece missing. Oh My Ghost is marketed as the first of four films, but it's actually the second of something like six. The first is Haunting Me, AKA Hor Taew Tak, translated to something like Taew's Dormitory is Broken. But Netflix doesn't have Hor Taew Tak, so I spent far too much time searching before finding it on AsianCrush. Let's hope that's a trustworthy website, cause we're continuing Pride Month by taking about haunted ladyboys from Thailand!
The Tooth Fairy (2006)
As I threatened on Friday while talking about Darkness Falls, there is more than one horror movie where the villain is a witch called the Tooth Fairy. But where Darkness Falls had some effort put into it, 2006's The Tooth Fairy is bad on just about every level. The monster is disappointing, the characters are bland, and the whole thing is a waste of time.
Darkness Falls (2003)
Given enough time, horror movies will try to make everything creepy. I've seen a horror trailer where the "Happy Birthday" song is sung menacingly, and I gotta say, I was not impressed. But more relevant to today's post, Darkness Falls is about the Tooth Fairy killing people. I just... really? You thought people would be afraid of the Tooth Fairy? At least they had the good decency to come up with a somewhat creepy title, instead of being lazy and just calling this film The Tooth Fairy.
Ghost Shark (2013)
Oh, I'm sorry, did you think I was kidding at the end of the Tsunambee post when I said I was going to watch Ghost Shark next? I own a physical copy of the damn thing! Sometime in the middle of quarantine (time has been rendered meaningless) I picked up a DVD multipack of shark movies that also included one alligator film because...? Anyway, when's Shark Week? Sometime in July or August? Well don't be surprised if I celebrate by watching Mississippi River Sharks, Ozark Sharks, Santa Jaws, Radioactive Sewer Sharks, Swamp Shark, and/or Zombie Shark. I also made up one of those, have fun guessing.
Suburban Gothic (2014)
As promised in the Excision post, today we're talking about Suburban Gothic. Outside of Excision I have not actually seen anything featuring Mr. Matthew Gray Gubler. I didn't get into Criminal Minds and the Alvin and the Chipmunks quadrilogy is reserved for a week when I just want to suffer. But I knew of him through memes, so I was excited to watch this. Add in Kat Dennings--now featured in WandaVision which I talk about the day after each new episode--and we have a recipe for a good time! It's just a shame, then, that the movie was... fine. It's fine. It was okay.
The Phantom (1996)
Good heavens, look at the time! It's been a while since I rolled randomly on the list of movies I've referenced but haven't reviewed yet, so let's do that again! Out of a list of 291 movies (why do I do this to myself), the random die roller picks... #247! And that film is... available exclusively on HBO Max, a streaming service I don't currently have access to. Oh no, it looks like I'll have to talk about a secret agent monkey another day. So let's roll again... #195! The Phantom! This I can do!
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Merry Christmas! My gift to you is me rambling about aspect ratios. No, you can't exchange it for something else. So anyway, you've probably heard of "widescreen" versus "full screen." Full screen is an aspect ratio of 4:3 (if the width is 4 units, then the height is 3 units), creating close to a square. This was the format of most early television shows and a lot of movies got cut down to that for a home release, either losing things on the sides or forcing editors to make awkward shifts to keep the action on the smaller screen. Case in point, the DVD of The Muppet Christmas Carol I have gives you the option of watching either widescreen or full screen before starting the movie, and in the full screen example you can see Peter Cratchit nearly cut out of the shot entirely. So widescreen for theatrical movies is generally better, right? Well, let me tell you why I prefer to watch this particular movie in full screen, or at least for one particular scene...
The Polar Express (2004)
I want to start by saying that we have a lot to thank Robert Zemeckis for. He wrote and directed Back to the Future, its sequels, and directed the... Back to the Future Saturday morning cartoon? That has to be a typo. Anyway the man is a legend! Buuuuut... holy crap, his animated movies are unpleasant to look at. It also doesn't help that the story at the heart of The Polar Express is also pretty blah.
The Spirit of Christmas (2015)
Ah, Christmas... It's a magical time of year overflowing with romantic opportunities. Or at least that's how it is in Lifetime original movies where the only gift the female lead needs to buy is for her love interest, friends and family be damned. These movies generally follow a plot of "woman sad, woman meet man, woman kiss man in snow," but when a film breaks with that pattern, sometimes true magic happens. So let's talk about a Lifetime movie where a lady wants to fuck a Christmas ghost!
Chwineka Watches 