Dungeons, Dragons and Arachnoids
Courtesy of them being now available via streaming, I watched:
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves: As fun and charming as everyone said. No, I have never played D& D in my life, I just read the Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends and a few other novels, but even if I hadn't, this movie doesn't require any background knowledge. (I will admit I did think "hang on, wasn't read the color of neutral mages and black the color of dark mages in the Dragonlance novels, so why is it the other way around here?" at one point.) It reminded me of the early 1990s fantasy tv shows shot in New Zealand, that kind of vibe. There's certainly making fun of some clichés, but the characters themselves are cared for by the narrative. A pop corn movie n the best way. (Also, Hugh Grant continues to enjoy his second career playing villains.)
Spider-man: Across the Spiderverse and the Sony cartoon movies continue to be absolutely amazing, art and storywise. (Also showing how to do a multiverse story where you care about all the characters, as opposed to certain other attempts. Looking at you, Loki and Multiverse of Madness.) I tried to remain spoiler free but did osmose that there was a cliffhanger ending, so I wasn't completely caught of guard by same. (Otherwise, I would have presumably wondered in the last third where the initial villain got off to, among other things.) Opening from Gwen's pov was a great idea, and with Miles' determination through the film to not accept that "canon events" , i.e. lethal tragedies, are necessary for being Spider-man (not to mention holding the universe together), it was a great choice to let his cliffhanger ending be formed by the shock realisation as to who he might be otherwise. (It also, along with other things, points out Miguel's theory isn't true. Earth-42' Miles Morales did not become Spider-man but the Prowler instead, and that contributed to it being a crapsack world, but he did evidently live through the tragedy of losing his father. Tragedies can create villains as well as heroes.) Similarly, Gwen has her heureka moment when she realises her father quitting his job means he doesn't play the "canon" role anymore and likely won't die - and the universe still doesn't collapse. This is on the one hand a great booster for Team Nothing Is Written, but otoh Gwen already went through her tragedy - the loss of her Peter Parker. For that matter, Miles lost his Uncle Aaron in the previous movie. It seems to me the Spiderverse movies want to strike a balance between choosing free will in universe and variation and new stories instead of endless rebooted repetition of the exact same narrative on a Doylist level, but otoh being aware that of course loss generates strong emotion on the audience's part if played right, and so their Spider-people might not all go through the exact same one but sooner or later someone close to them bites the dust. (Though, as I said: Miles has already had that experience, so did Gwen, which is why I'm betting on both of his parents and her father making it out of the next movie alive.) Speaking of Miles' parents, I appreciate this time around we got much more of his mother, who in the first movie hardly got any screen time compared to his father. And the return of Peter B. Parker, now proud Dad, with toddler Mayday, pleases me on both a Watsonian and Doylist level as well (take that, Joe Queseda and your insistence that any version of Peter Parker liked by the audience needs to be a teenager and can never be a married adult with adult responsibilities).
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves: As fun and charming as everyone said. No, I have never played D& D in my life, I just read the Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends and a few other novels, but even if I hadn't, this movie doesn't require any background knowledge. (I will admit I did think "hang on, wasn't read the color of neutral mages and black the color of dark mages in the Dragonlance novels, so why is it the other way around here?" at one point.) It reminded me of the early 1990s fantasy tv shows shot in New Zealand, that kind of vibe. There's certainly making fun of some clichés, but the characters themselves are cared for by the narrative. A pop corn movie n the best way. (Also, Hugh Grant continues to enjoy his second career playing villains.)
Spider-man: Across the Spiderverse and the Sony cartoon movies continue to be absolutely amazing, art and storywise. (Also showing how to do a multiverse story where you care about all the characters, as opposed to certain other attempts. Looking at you, Loki and Multiverse of Madness.) I tried to remain spoiler free but did osmose that there was a cliffhanger ending, so I wasn't completely caught of guard by same. (Otherwise, I would have presumably wondered in the last third where the initial villain got off to, among other things.) Opening from Gwen's pov was a great idea, and with Miles' determination through the film to not accept that "canon events" , i.e. lethal tragedies, are necessary for being Spider-man (not to mention holding the universe together), it was a great choice to let his cliffhanger ending be formed by the shock realisation as to who he might be otherwise. (It also, along with other things, points out Miguel's theory isn't true. Earth-42' Miles Morales did not become Spider-man but the Prowler instead, and that contributed to it being a crapsack world, but he did evidently live through the tragedy of losing his father. Tragedies can create villains as well as heroes.) Similarly, Gwen has her heureka moment when she realises her father quitting his job means he doesn't play the "canon" role anymore and likely won't die - and the universe still doesn't collapse. This is on the one hand a great booster for Team Nothing Is Written, but otoh Gwen already went through her tragedy - the loss of her Peter Parker. For that matter, Miles lost his Uncle Aaron in the previous movie. It seems to me the Spiderverse movies want to strike a balance between choosing free will in universe and variation and new stories instead of endless rebooted repetition of the exact same narrative on a Doylist level, but otoh being aware that of course loss generates strong emotion on the audience's part if played right, and so their Spider-people might not all go through the exact same one but sooner or later someone close to them bites the dust. (Though, as I said: Miles has already had that experience, so did Gwen, which is why I'm betting on both of his parents and her father making it out of the next movie alive.) Speaking of Miles' parents, I appreciate this time around we got much more of his mother, who in the first movie hardly got any screen time compared to his father. And the return of Peter B. Parker, now proud Dad, with toddler Mayday, pleases me on both a Watsonian and Doylist level as well (take that, Joe Queseda and your insistence that any version of Peter Parker liked by the audience needs to be a teenager and can never be a married adult with adult responsibilities).