The End...Of The Review Basement?

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing very well. So you might be wondering why I haven't posted my review of season 2 of Love, Victor or my season 1 review of Only Murders in the Building right? Well, that's what I'm going to be talking about in this post today. So let's get into it!

For the last little while I've been just a tad unhappy about the way The Review Basement is going. Oh don't get me wrong I've had fun on this blog in the last year and a half since I moved The Review Basement over from Word Press and got alot of reviews and posts done that I never got to do because of the way Word Press is set up and how time consuming that made writing reviews and other posts. But, I haven't been able to settle on a focus for the blog. Which is why I created Josh's Movie Review Corner back on Word Press. The PROBLEM with that is that unless I actually posted something over there every day, my views didn't go up. A post would do well on the day I posted it but that would be it, until I put up the next post. Which is part of the reason I left Word Press in March of last year and deleted the original Review Basement blog. Blogger has been way better in that regard. But something still isn't right.

After thinking about it for the last week or so, I've realized that The Review Basement has become just another review site. I reviewed modern movies, TV shows, comic books, and video games (sort of), and those posts don't do as well as my reviews of things from my childhood or when I did Living With Disabilities, which I ended up abandoning because I also lost sight of what I originally intended for that to be in the first place. Which really sucks because when I began the blogger version of The Review Basement, I had big plans and big dreams for what I wanted it to be. And only some of it ended up happening the way I wanted it to. It didn't help that at the very beginning of the blog I ended up having to take a month off because I ended up getting sick with a very bad Urinary Tract Infection that, no joke, was very close to killing me. I know, that sounds hyperbolic coming from me, but it's true.

So, with that said, I am shutting down The Review Basement. However, I'm not going away from blogging. Far from it. I'm starting a brand new blog called Josh's Nostalgia Corner. It's here on Blogger and I am only going to be talking about the media and entertainment that I grew up with from 1986, when I was born, to just after my 29th birthday in 2015 though I'm still going to be talking about special stuff from after that, especially things where my friends and family were involved. I just won't be reviewing anything current or anything from the past that I have no interest in. The focus will be on my childhood and the things I experienced in the realm of entertainment which will be quite different. Here's the link for the new blog:

Josh's Nostalgia Corner

There's no content on there right now. But I'll be doing my first post on there tomorrow. So come join me on the new blog. Unlike with the original Word Press version of The Review Basement, I'm not deleting this blog. Once this post is up, I'll have 318 posts on here, so you can go back and read those any time you wish. I just want to do something different with my blog and don't want to have a third shift (or is it millionth???) in content on this blog. I also won't be posting on Josh's Movie Review Corner anymore either, but that will still be up for you folks to peruse if you so choose. Anyways guys I think that's going to be it for me for tonight. I'll be back on the new blog tomorrow though for a look at the very first two video games I ever played. So until then have a wonderful night and I will talk to you all later. Take care!

Love, Victor (2020) Season 1 Review

 I'm back! I bet you're probably wondering why I'm doing things this way right? I wanted to get the movie reviews up here as fast as possible, so I could put up the Love, Simon review before I did the Love, Victor reviews. So let's get into season 1 of Love, Victor!

Two weeks ago I watched the 2018 teen romantic dramedy Love, Simon and reviewed it on Josh's Movie Review Corner. Last week I decided to watch the Hulu spin-off TV series Love, Victor. My original plan was to just watch two episodes a night since each episode is between 28 and 33 minutes in length. I did that on Monday night. Then on Tuesday night, I watched four episodes, and then on Wednesday I watched eight episodes. Each season is only ten episodes long so I'm actually finished season 2. See why I didn't watch very many movies in the last two weeks?

I knew of Love, Victor because here in Canada it's on Disney+ and both seasons dropped one episode per week during the time they were on. So whenever I'd go on to watch The Orville or a movie, I'd see it show up on the front page of the website. I hadn't watched it because I hadn't seen the movie yet. But after watching the movie and REALLY enjoying it, I decided to give the show a shot even though I was skeptical because I figured the show would be a rehash of the movie, but with different characters. It's not. In fact it's far from a rehash.

Season 1 of Love, Victor is anything but a rehash of Love, Simon. In fact in the first episode, Victor Salazar, played by Michael Cimino, reaches out to Simon, played by Nick Robinson, and tells him that he (Victor) isn't him (Simon). But not only is Victor not Simon, but Victor's friends aren't Nick, Leah, and Abby, his sister isn't Simon's sister, and his parents aren't Simon's parents. The character dynamics are different and storywise Victor's friends all have an equal amount of development and growth as the season goes on and each of them is interesting.

My favourite characters this season are Felix Westen, played by Anthony Turpel, and Lake Meriwether, played by Bebe Wood. Mia's great too, but there's just something about Lake in particular that draws me to her. And Felix feels like a familiar character because he's the best friend character that we see in every teen movie and show since the dawn of time. Lake on the other hand is different than the typical girl character that we get in these kinds of shows.

When we first meet Lake in the first episode, it looks like she's going to be the typical shallow, beautiful, cheerleader type character even though she's got curves, which I'm starting to see more of on shows like this rather than your typical Sophia Bush (who is also on Love, Victor)/Mischa Barton/Tiffani-Amber Thiessen type that were in teen dramas in the '90s and 2000s. But very quickly you realize that she's not that at all. Her character description on Wikipedia says, "Mia's social media-obsessed best friend". Except they don't really go into that past the first three episodes or so. She has issues with her mother, because of course she does. Beyond that though, Lake is very different and grows very quickly as a character. I think that might just be because of the fact that Love, Victor is ten episodes per season rather than 20 to 25 so it makes things alot tighter than past teen dramas. Especially when it comes to character development.

 I love Victor's family. They aren't perfect and I like that they don't pretend to be like the Coopers on both The O.C. and Riverdale. My favourite character of Victor's family is his sister Pilar, played by Isabella Ferreira. She kind of reminds me of Kaitlin Cooper, Marissa's younger sister, on The O.C. (played by Shailene Woodley in seasons 1 and 2, and Willa Holland in seasons 3 and 4) but less manipulative than Kaitlin was in the later seasons of the show. Still a very cool character though and I love what season 2 had in store for her.

As for Victor himself, I've seen some reviews on YouTube and a few of them have said that while everyone around him was fully developed, Victor wasn't. I honestly didn't see that at all. I mean Victor's whole arc this season is him adjusting to his new school, making new friends, and figuring out whether or not he's gay, and if he is gay, whether he can make it work with Mia or not so he won't have to come out to his parents. I guess, we could've found out more about him, particularly about his past in Texas, but none of that is really all that necessary to understand what he's going through in this season.

Overall season 1 of Love, Victor was a solid season of television. I'm used to watching genre shows with high stakes and unnecessary drama that holds the story back in alot of cases. So this was a nice change of pace. There isn't really a character I hated throughout this entire season. Mason Gooding's character, Andrew comes close a few times, especially in the first few episodes, but he redeems himself as the season goes on. I guess there's Benji's boyfriend, Derek, but he's not in it enough for him to be really noteworthy. If you enjoyed Love, Simon I recommend you check out Love, Victor.

Alrighty, folks, we've come to the end of the ported over reviews from Josh's Movie Review Corner. So I will be back later with my review of season 2 of Love, Victor. See you all later.

Love, Simon (2018) Review

 And I have returned! When I sat down to watch this movie a couple of weeks ago, I was super excited because I actually wanted to see this movie when it originally came out in 2018. So let's get into it, shall we?

When I first saw the trailer for Love, Simon back in 2018, I thought it looked pretty good. I'm a fan of Greg Berlanti's work as he's produced some pretty great shows over the years including Everwood and pretty much every comic book based show on The CW. But I didn't get to see the movie because I actually didn't have anyone to go see it with. Then I kind of forgot about it until I saw that it was on Disney+, since it was produced and released by 20th Century Fox. Love, Simon is based on Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, because of course Berlanti would direct an adaptation of a book or comic.

Despite the fact that the movie is about a gay person who is struggling to decide whether he wants to come out or not, the movie itself is actually pretty relatable to anyone in that we all hide who we really are from the world around us, especially from those closest to us. When we reveal ourselves to the world, we run the risk of the world not liking us. But, hopefully, if we're lucky, we find people in our lives who will accept us for who we are, no matter how weird we might be. Simon says it better at the end of the movie, but that's the gist of what he said. Honestly, I am 100% onboard with that because as an autistic person, I'm not always liked by the world around me, but I'm lucky to have friends and a family who accept me for who I am.

The cast in this movie is amazing. Out of everyone, the only ones I recognized were Josh Duhamel, Jennifer Garner, Keiynan Lonsdale, and Katherine Langford. I mean Duhamel was in all three of the first three Transformers movies, Jennifer Garner was in Alias, Daredevil, and Elektra not to mention dozens of other shows and movies that I haven't seen, and Keiynan Lonsdale played Wally West/Kid Flash on The Flash for a few seasons. I only know who Katherine Langford is because of 13 Reasons Why. I haven't seen that show, but I've heard people talking about it and seen reviews of it on YouTube. Apparently she's also in the Rian Johnson film, Knives Out, but I haven't seen that yet, despite a friend telling me I need to see it.

I love the fact that there aren't any high stakes in this movie. The world won't end because of Simon being outed by Martin, aliens aren't invading the planet as a result of Simon's outing. All it is is a story about a boy falling in love with another boy, and whether he should come out or not. I laughed quite a bit. Not always because something was genuinely funny, though there were a few times where I did laugh at something genuinely funny. I laughed because of how deliciously cheesy this movie is. Despite the fact that he didn't write this movie, this is 100% a Greg Berlanti movie. The dialogue is cheesy enough that if I hadn't seen the writing credits for this movie, I'd think he wrote them. And just the way some of the characters behave reminds me of the shows that Berlanti produced. This really feels like a movie where, while other people wrote it, and it's based on previously published works, it became what it is because of the director's influence.

My favourite relationship in this movie, besides Simon's parents, is that of Simon and Abby. Abby is the friend that Simon hasn't known his entire life, unlike Nick and Leah, as she just moved to town, but it's because of this that Simon feels more comfortable coming out to because they don't have that history. Which somewhat makes sense to me, because there's at least one time where I told a friend something about myself, that I hadn't told the friends I've known longer, and it felt easier. It's still a weird choice, but it's one I understand somewhat.

I also like the friendship between Simon and Leah (Katherine Langford's character). It reminds me of a friendship in my life. Though oddly enough, I kind of figured out that Leah was in love with Simon before she told him after Martin leaked Simon and Blue's e-mails to the entire school. I don't normally pick up on things like that, but it's a Greg Berlanti movie and he always, or almost always, has an unrequited love friendship in all of his work.

Simon and Nick didn't really have that many scenes together without the girls, so it's harder for me to really grasp what their friendship is, outside of Simon telling us that he'd known Nick and Leah since they were kids. I do love how Nick and Leah live across the street from each other and Simon reverses his car out of Nick's driveway and right into Leah's. That was great.

The one thing I didn't really like about it, aside from the character of Martin, is the fact that technically, the movie ruined the reveal of who Blue is at the end of the movie, by revealing it to us near the start of it. I haven't read the book, so I don't know if that was in the book or just the writers, or Berlanti, came up with, but it kind of spoils the movie a little bit because you know who it is even though it's the first person that Simon thinks of and the one Simon dismisses after the Halloween party. I don't want to give it away though in case some people reading this hasn't seen the movie yet.

I enjoyed this movie immensely. My sister had wanted me to see it when it first came out, but I just didn't get the chance. If you haven't seen it yet, I definitely recommend you check out Love, Simon.

I have three more posts to do today. The next one is my review of season 1 of Love, Victor which is the spin-off of this movie. Then the second is my review of that show's second season which I finished earlier this week. And the final post of the day is a look at the storyline of two characters across both seasons. So I'll see you shortly.

Free Guy (2021) Review

 Hey everyone! I'm back for my next movie review. This time I'll be reviewing the new Ryan Reynolds action comedy, Free Guy. Let's get into it.

Trailers can be very deceiving. As was the case with the trailer for Free Guy. The trailer only shows Ryan Reynolds's character and the world of the video game he lives in. So it tricks you into believing this is another over the top action comedy like Deadpool and Deadpool 2 are. Trust me, it's not. I've avoided the reviews of this movie, because I wanted to see it for myself so I don't know whether people like it or not. However, I have seen from the Wikipedia article on it, that people compare it to Ready Player One and The Truman Show as well as games like Grand Theft Auto and Fortnite. And I can definitely see some similarities. But, the entire time I was watching the movie, I keep thinking that the movie reminded me of Tron more than Ready Player One or The Truman Show. Mostly because the real story of the movie, finding evidence that a game development company's owner stole/plagiarized someone else's game(s), is similar though there are some massive differences. For example, this movie splits the time between the real world and the world of the video game more evenly than Tron did. Also this movie has characters I could connect with within the video game world, which, as you know from my Tron review, was my biggest problem with that movie since I am such a character guy.

Ryan Reynolds is one of those actors who is very hit or miss with me. And that's probably because I'm not interested in many of the movies he's in. While it's not a good movie, I really liked him as Hal Jordan in Green Lantern, and I enjoy him as Deadpool even though I generally don't like that character. But outside of those, I generally don't have much interest in the movies he's in. He was great in Free Guy though. I'm also not a fan of Taika Waititi, which is a hot take, I know, but it's true. I just don't get his sense of humour and I really thought his character in Green Lantern was pointless. Since then he's become really popular, particularly as a director, and I just don't get his films. That doesn't mean he's a bad filmmaker or a bad actor, I just don't get him. He was good in this movie though as the the film's antagonist, Antwan.

My favourite characters in this movie though are Millie, played by Jodie Comer, and Keys, played by Joe Keery. I almost didn't recognize Keery at first. I've only seen the first season of Stranger Things and I haven't seen Keery in anything else besides that, so I didn't recognize him because he wasn't in the '80s in this movie. Plus he wore glasses for much of the movie so that changed his look a little bit. I thought Keys and Millie had a good dynamic. Particularly later in the movie once they start working together against Antwan.

There were a ton of cameos in this movie. Mostly in the real world side of things. There were a bunch of video game YouTubers, who I don't know because I'm not heavy into the gaming side of YouTube and tons of celebrities like Dwayne Johnson as a bank robber NPC character in the game, and even Chris Evans shows up near the end of the movie. Which was funny. However, my favourite cameo was Alex Trebek on the set of Jeopardy!, which he filmed prior to his death.

I think I got into this movie because of the director. Greg Berlanti is a producer on the movie, but it was directed by Shawn Levy, who directed Big Fat Liar, Cheaper by the Dozen, and the Night at the Museum series, of which I've only seen the first movie of, as well as episodes of Animorphs. I love all three of the previous movies of his that I've seen, so knowing that he did this movie too just elevated it for me.

Honestly Free Guy is such a stupid movie but it's stupid in the best way possible. It's a movie that I probably would've watched had it come out when I was in high school. It's not the nostalgia fest that Ready Player One is, and it's not the technical masterpiece that Tron is. It's just a fun movie and I really enjoyed it. I highly recommend you watch it. Then again, I haven't watched any other movies from 2021 yet, except for Luca and I loved that.

Okay, one more movie review to go and then I'll have season reviews for a show that really sucked me in. The next movie review is for Love, Simon. So I'll see you in that review. Later.

Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020) Review

 Hey everyone! Here's my review of Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. Before I start it, I have to say that my expectations for this movie were EXTREMELY low when I sat down to watch this with my sister a couple of weeks ago. And they just got lower and lower as the movie went on. As you'll see in the review, I like this movie, but it's not a good movie nor is it actually a Birds of Prey movie either. So let's get into it.

I didn't know what to really expect when I sat down to watch Birds of Prey with my sister at her place two Saturday nights ago. But what I got wasn't a Birds of Prey movie. I got a Harley Quinn movie where the Birds of Prey are superfluous at best. As I said to my sister after the movie, it was a good Harley Quinn movie but a bad Birds of Prey movie. I mean, it's not a great movie by any means, but it's at least a decent Harley Quinn movie.

I'm a fan of DC Comics, mostly Batman, so to see this many DC Comics/Batman characters in a movie together is great. Especially because, with the exception of Harley, many of these characters are unknown to the non-comic book reading audience. The problem is none of the characters are even close to who they are in the comics. Except for Harley Quinn, and Black Mask, played by Ewan MacGregor. Maybe Dinah Lance, but even she feels out of character. I love Mary Elizabeth Winstead and have ever since I saw her in Sky High (2005), but that's not Helena Bertinelli. Even her backstory isn't Helena Bertinelli's backstory in any medium, be it comics, movies or TV shows. I'm fine with adaptation, but this isn't adaptation, this is creating a completely new character and giving her the name of the character from the comics. The same thing goes for Cassandra Cain. I'm not a fan of that character, who was Batgirl in the comics from 1998 until 2009, but the version we see in the movie has nothing to do with the character from the comics.

Having said that, the cast is pretty good. The only cast members I am really familiar with are Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ewan MacGregor as I've seen them as various characters over the years outside of the roles I was introduced to them with. I've only ever seen Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn so I'm not overly familiar with her work.

The story on the other hand was extremely hard to follow and trying to include EVERYONE'S backstory made things way too slow and meandering. It wasn't bad, but I think the script could've benefitted from being tightened up more than it was. Almost as if someone wrote two drafts before turning it in for approval from Warner Bros. and that's it. The writer, Christina Hodson, had only written three other movies when she was hired to write Birds of Prey and that includes Bumblebee. Now I'd like to believe that the way Birds of Prey turned out is due to studio interference from Warner Bros. but there's no indication of that in any source I can find online, unlike with Suicide Squad (2016). So I think it's as I said before. Hodson wrote the script and gave it a single pass before writing the next draft, which ended up being the final draft. I hope that's not the case, but the way the story is, doesn't exactly give me reason to think otherwise.

Honestly, I can't really recommend this movie. If you're a fan of the comics, you're going to be annoyed as hell that they changed so much in the adaptation. If you've never read the comics, you might enjoy it, but it all depends on whether you like meandering storytelling or not. I gave it a watch because I'm a fan of the comics.

And that's it with this review. Next up is a movie I was interesting in seeing, but had very low hopes for before I sat down to watch it. So join me in a little bit for my review of Free Guy, the most recent movie I've reviewed so far on either of my blogs.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995) Review

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday! I'm back with another review! The next several posts that I'm putting out today are ones that I'm porting over from Josh's Movie Review Corner so bear with me as I get everything moved over. The first post is the only standalone movie review I have on that blog, which I did before I started doing the TV and Movie Wrap-Up series, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. So let's get into it.

I've been a fan of the Power Rangers franchise for almost 28 years. I first discovered Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in early 1994, near the end of the show's first season. The earlier episodes were on in reruns constantly, so I never actually missed an episode, but late first season is when I started watching the show. So when 20th Century Fox and Saban Entertainment announced that the Power Rangers were coming to the big screen in mid 1995 I was stoked.

I didn't get to see Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie in theatres, but I remember seeing the trailers for it on TV during the first half of 1995, and I remember seeing the toys in the various catalogues we used to get, but seeing it on the big screen was not in the cards. I did see it on home video though. I had it on VHS and I really enjoyed it.

Even though it's not a good movie, I can't help but love it. Not even because I'm a Power Rangers fan or because it's nostalgic. I like it because it's a fun movie with cheesy special effects. And by cheesy effects I mean really horrible CGI, and practical effects that are only slightly better than what I saw on the TV show around that same time. And yet, it works.

One of the most memorable elements of this movie is Paul Freeman as Ivan Ooze. I mean he took out the Rangers and Zordon, AND Rita and Zedd in one fell swoop. I'm pretty sure I didn't see Raiders of the Lost Ark until after Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie so I didn't recognize Ivan Ooze as Indy's nemesis Belloq. Nor did I recognize Belloq as Ivan Ooze when I saw Raiders five or six years later. The thing about Ivan Ooze is that he's a cheesy, over the top, comic book villain, which Power Rangers is full of, but he's funny which is why I like him. If he weren't funny he'd be no better than Rito Revolto or any other villain who temporarily succeeded against the Rangers, only to be defeated by them once they got new powers and new Zords.

I love the soundtrack for this movie. While I don't have the full score album, I do have the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie: Original Soundtrack Album which contains songs like "Higher Ground" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Dreams" by Van Halen, and "SenSurround" by They Might Be Giants. My favourite songs on the album though are "Trouble" by Shampoo and "Ayeyaiyai (Alpha Song)" by Power Jet. "Trouble" plays at the beginning of the scene where Fred Kelman (played by Jamie Croft) tries to convince Bulk, Skull, and the other kids that Ivan Ooze is evil and he's going to kill their parents and plays during the closing credits after the mid-credits scene where Rita and Zedd return to the Moon Palace following Ivan's destruction. "Ayeyaiyai (Alpha Song)" is the final song played during the closing credits, and it's basically a song about Alpha's role within the Power Rangers.

Critics at the time said that the movie was just a longer episode of the TV show, and I can't actually agree with that. TV shows are very different from movies and are paced differently too. On a show like Power Rangers, you only have 20 to 30 minutes to tell each part of a multi-part episode, whereas with movies you're telling the story all at once mostly without the need for cliffhangers and the occasional time jump after the initial resolution of the cliffhanger at the beginning of each part. Which is why it's a bit jarring to watch movies that are just edited together versions of multi-part episodes of a TV show. They often don't edit out the cliffhangers.

My favourite sequence in this entire movie is the morphing sequence. I always get chills when I hear the usual "Dragonzord/Tigerzord!", "Mastodon!", "Pterodactyl!", "Triceratops!", "Saber-toothed Tiger!", "Tyrannosaurus!" morphing call on the TV show because it's basically their call to action. But it's an 8 sec sequence, because you only have half an hour to tell a story in the TV show. The movie version however is 32 seconds long. Which doesn't seem like that much of a difference. However, because the Rangers took so long to morph, Ivan Ooze's henchmen walked away. I always thought that was funny, because in shows like Power Rangers, Sailor Moon, and Digimon the bad guys always just stand there and wait while the heroes transform. Not in this movie though. They walked away even though they had the Rangers cornered.

One thing that puzzles me about the movie is that despite not having their powers while on Phaedos, the Rangers were still able to do things that they couldn't do before they had powers. I figured that Dulcea gave them limited power when she gave them their Ninja Ranger suits, which is how they were able to defeat the Stone Warriors guarding the monolith. But when they first arrived, they're struggling with the Tengu Warriors sent by Ivan to destroy the Rangers and one point a Tengu picks up Kimberly and lifts her into the air. After a bit, it drops her from a pretty decent height, but she lands on her feet without any broken bones or physical harm, like she'd have done if she'd had her Ranger powers. Yet in the next movie, Katherine and Tommy jump off a waterfall and Katherine twists her ankle, and her Ranger powers were intact...What?

Speaking of Kimberly and Aisha, I love both characters and both Amy Jo Johnson and Karan Ashley did such a wonderful job on the show and in this movie. However, they are the most useless Rangers in this entire movie. On the show Kimberly and Aisha are pretty strong characters, and very rarely get into the kind of trouble that they need the boys to help them get out of. There's only three examples I can give off the top of my head for Kimberly. The first was in "Calamity Kimberly" where she was trapped in another dimension and the other Rangers had to save her. The second was in the second season episode "Forever Friends" where she's kidnapped by Goldar, along with Aisha's friend Shawna, and can't morph because Shawna is there and Kim has to keep her identity as the Pink Ranger a secret. The third example of this was in season 3 in the three part episode, "Changing of the Zords" and that was because she was weakened from the loss of her powers, was unconscious when Goldar captured her and was kept in stasis by Lord Zedd basically the whole time. But in most instances where Kimberly is captured or in trouble, she's pretty good at getting herself out of it. Aisha is no slouch either on the TV show. In fact, the only time she'd really been captured was in the season 2 two parter "The Ninja Encounter" and that was BEFORE she was the Yellow Ranger and had no Ranger powers. Not to mention the amount of screaming both girls do in this movie is annoying. I get that the writer and director were new to Power Rangers when they made this movie, but they basically reduced the only two female leads to screaming, helpless, '90s movie female characters, when that's not who either of them are at all.

Overall while Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie is far from the best superhero movie ever made, even by '90s standards, it's still a fun movie to watch. It's your average quest movie, similar to The Wizard of Oz, The Empire Strikes Back, and more recent films like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle where the heroes have to gain new abilities and end up discovering things about themselves before defeating the bad guys by the end of the movie. Having said that though, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie is definitely not a movie you'd put on for date night. It's not that it's a guilty pleasure movie by any means. But this movie is so very rooted in the '90s that unless your partner grew up in the '90s, or is a fan of the franchise, they're not going to appreciate it as much. Though I'd definitely recommend putting the soundtrack on because, like I said, it's got some great songs on it.

Alrighty, that's going to be it for me for the time being. I will be back for my next imported movie review, where I'm going to bring over Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. See you in a bit.

Super Mario 3D All-Stars First Impressions

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing well. So I don't have a Comic Book Wrap-Up for you today, because I didn't have time to read any comic books this week. Instead I binged the first two seasons of Love, Victor, had a fairly busy Thanksgiving weekend, and watched alot of YouTube. I think this is why I had decided against doing wrap-up posts like Comic Book Wrap-Up for so long. I said in my first Comic Book Wrap-Up that if I don't read enough books over the course of the week for me to have a solid post, then I'm not going to do that post. Which is exactly what happened this week. But I wanted to get a post out for The Review Basement this week, so without further ado let's talk about Super Mario 3D All-Stars which I bought yesterday while I was out doing groceries. So let's get into it.

I'm going to talk about these three games more in depth in a separate post later on, but I wanted to get my thoughts on the presentation of the compilation as a whole as well as my history with each of these three games.

The original Super Mario All-Stars for the Super Nintendo is how I played Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 3 when I was a kid, though I did play Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES at the hospital one time. So when Nintendo announced earlier last year that they were doing a new Super Mario All-Stars compilation for the Nintendo Switch and that it was going to include three of the 3D Mario games from the Nintendo 64, the GameCube, and the Wii, I was really excited. Mainly because I had never actually owned Super Mario 64 when I was a kid and had never played Super Mario Sunshine before since my brother had a GameCube but I don't think he ever owned that particular game. We had Super Mario Galaxy for our Nintendo Wii so that was the only one I played at home. 

What's really cool about this compilation is that it includes the complete soundtracks for all three games on the cartridge. Yes, I have a physical copy of the game. I listened to a few tracks from the Super Mario 64 soundtrack and I love it. The menu screen is also alot better than the one for the SNES Super Mario All-Stars because it includes information about each game when scroll through them. So that was really cool.

I played the game for an hour as soon as I got home and had put my groceries away. The game I spent the most time on was Super Mario 64 because of the three games that are included in this compilation, this is the one that is the most nostalgic for me. My family didn't get a Nintendo 64 until Christmas 1999. By then Super Mario 64 was no longer the game that came with the console, and my parents never found it for us individually. However, I did play it at CHEO when I was there for something in late 1996 or sometime in 1997. There weren't any walkthroughs or anything like that when I was a kid, because the internet didn't exist the same way it does now, and I didn't have access to Nintendo Power. So I had no idea what to do. I ended up just playing around Peach's Castle the entire time I played it, which wasn't long because I had an IV in my right hand and I couldn't manage to use that hand for very long. I think my buddy Cam had it up at the cottage, because I remember being at his house and watching him play it when we weren't playing Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 64.

Super Mario Sunshine is the exact opposite. I played it for the first time yesterday morning. Like I said earlier, my brother had a GameCube in the mid-2000s, but we never owned one as a family so I never had the opportunity to play the game. Plus by the time this game came out in 2002, everyone I knew who played video games had moved on to the original Xbox, the PlayStation 2, or had left console gaming entirely and gotten into PC gaming. So I didn't know anyone who had a GameCube when I was in high school. I'm going to go through the game eventually, but I wanna try to beat Super Mario 64 first before I take a full dive into the GameCube game.

Super Mario Galaxy is a game I've played only once in my life. We had a Nintendo Wii in the early 2010s and this was one of the games we had for it. I found the Wii to be an awkward console for me to play because of how the controllers were with the nunchuks, so I didn't play it very often. But I remember wanting to give this game a try after a session of Disney Epic Mickey, which is probably my favourite game on the Wii. I liked it, but again, because the controllers were so weird for this console, I found it really awkward so I had no idea what I was doing and ended up giving up on it after only a few minutes. I've heard the game itself is pretty great, but it's not one I'm going to end up playing very often on this compilation.

Because of the limited nature of this game, I was really surprised when I found a physical copy of it at Shoppers Drugmart when I went in with my mom to get some things I couldn't get at the grocery store a month ago. I didn't get it that day, and two weeks ago we didn't need to go into Shoppers, but yesterday was the day and I'm thrilled that I was finally able to get a copy of the game so I could finally play Super Mario 64 on a console that I owned.

They didn't try to "fix" the graphics or anything like they had for the versions of the three Super Mario Bros. games on the original SNES Super Mario All-Stars cartridge. The only thing they changed for this game is the controls, because obviously the Switch controller is very different from the old N64 controller. As a result, the game looks exactly the way I remember it looking when I played it on the N64 at the hospital 24 or 25 years ago. Which is really cool.

That my friends is it for me for today. I'll be back later this week, probably on Friday, to post my reviews of the first two seasons of Love, Victor as well as my review of Love, Simon, porting them over from my TV and Movie Wrap-Ups on Josh's Move Review Corner. So until then have a great afternoon and I will talk to you all later. Take care! 

Comic Book Wrap-Up #2: Hawkeye and Bryan Lee O'Malley's Graphic Novels!

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm pretty well. This week's edition of Comic Book Wrap-Up is going to be a bit shorter than last week's was. I didn't read any single issues this week, just a trade paperback collected edition and two graphic novels. There also aren't any DC books this week either. Just Marvel and independent. So without further ado let's talk about this week's books.

Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon isn't a great book or anything like that. It's pretty fun though. I've actually read it before, but at the time I actually didn't like it very much. Most of the story was taking place under the surface, and all I was seeing was the non-stop action which I don't care about at all. But I decided to give it another shot in preparation for the Disney+ series coming up next month since many of the action shots seem to be taken directly from this volume of Matt Fraction's comic book run. I still don't really know (or care) what was going on with SHIELD during this period, but I had fun reading this book.

My favourite part of it was the dynamic between Clint Barton and Kate Bishop. There's a banter between them that practically borders on flirtation, but it's not creepy in any way. Obviously they're going to play it a bit differently in the series, at least on Clint's side of things, since Clint is married and has children in the MCU. Though he does avoid Kate's flirtations in this book, if they keep that aspect of their relationship in the show, they'll have to change Clint's reason for rejecting Kate's flirtation. Or they'll just eliminate that whole aspect altogether. Which is fine with me.

Overall the story is okay, but I'm there more for Clint and Kate's fun dynamic and the way Clint finds a solution to the problems he faces in the book. The art for the book, by David Aja for the first three issues, and Javier Pulido for the final two issues collected in this volume, is pretty solid. I know Pulido's work from Robin: Year One and it's pretty good. I'm not familiar with Aja's work aside from the first three issues in this volume. This is the perfect way to get acquainted with Clint and Kate before the series starts next month. 

 If you feel like Bryan Lee O'Malley's name is familiar but you can't quite place it, he's the writer, artist, and creator of Scott Pilgrim and did all six volumes of that series. Lost at Sea is his first graphic novel, that he did before he did the first Scott Pilgrim book, Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life. It's an okay book. Not alot happens in it, but the artwork is good and I like Raleigh, the main character of the book. Many of the themes that O'Malley deals with in this book were honestly dealt with better in Scott Pilgrim, but this is O'Malley's first graphic novel and I did take that into account when I read the book. I also took into account the fact that Scott Pilgrim is six books, while Lost at Sea is one book, and a fairly short one at that. I liked the book, but there's not much to it. I'd still recommend picking it up though if you have the chance.

The final book that I read this week is another Bryan Lee O'Malley graphic novel. This one is called Seconds and I have no idea what it's about. I mean I get the general premise of the book, but when I read it I was REALLY confused. The art is spectacular as always, but the story felt more convoluted than the entirety of Scott Pilgrim. Maybe it's because I wasn't connecting to the main character, Katie, the way I connected to Scott Pilgrim, despite Scott being a terrible person. Or maybe it's because the story is just so bonkers that I had a hard time following it. Then again, messing with time in any story usually confuses me. Especially at the end when the timeline is restored, there's always some alteration to the original timeline that ends up confusing the situation even more and...you know, I think I'll just end that trail of thought with saying that I understand why Captain Janeway hates time travel on Star Trek: Voyager. It's confusing as hell. Lol. Definitely pick up Seconds if you're interested in reading it. It's pretty good, even if it was confusing.

I think that's going to be it for me for today. Like I said, just a nice, short Comic Book Wrap-Up as these three books were all I had time to read this week. But I'll have more single issues to talk about next week so stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, join me over on Josh's Movie Review Corner on Friday because I have lots of movies and shows to talk about this week. So until then have a great week and I will talk to you all later. Take care.