First Impressions Review Diary 2-Apr-2022

__Welcome back.🙂
__Today's compilation of mini reviews starts with The Batman. Like I said before, it just missed out on its chance to be in last month's entry, because I'd be going to see it mere hours after it was time for me to post that one. So finally, after all the hype and countless delays to the film's production, what did I think?

The Batman (2022)
It has some plot elements I've seen before and done better in other Batman stories, so it's far from the best Batman movie, but certainly the darkest and most downbeat. The highlight is the terrifically disturbing version of the Riddler.
My rating: 75%.

__And now on to the video games that continue to occupy the bulk of my time.🙂
__Over the past month, I reached the end of my games from 2004. I decided that would be a good time to post a list of all the games I'd covered so far, which you can check out here.

My Full Game List So Far

__If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll know that video games have been occupying almost all my time. I've compiled a list of every game I own, be it legitimately or as a ROM for an emulator, and I'm going through them in order from oldest to newest (or rather alphabetically within each year). I've mainly been focusing on the ones that I haven't played before, and whose rating on my list is therefore blank.

__Now, I never claimed to be a good gamer, so typically what happens is that I try playing the first few minutes of the game, and if it becomes clear that I can't progress quickly (whether it's because I can't see the way forward or I don't feel like putting in the necessary practice), I switch to watching a longplay on YouTube so I can at least see the rest. After all, I have so many games to get through that I don't want to get hung up on each one for days or weeks at a time. Still, there are exceptions where I have actually played the whole game myself, like Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger and Super Mario 64.

__I've been at this for over a year now. I first made the inventory and started playing some of the older games (or at least trying to) towards the end of 2020, but it wasn't until February the next year that I started writing reviews for them. And guess what. I'm still not even halfway through the list! That's partly because the schedule keeps getting interrupted by other games that I decide to preview to see if they're worth adding to my library. At the moment, the prime examples are the Sonic and Castlevania series, of which I'd only played a select few before, but now I've decided to catch up on all the rest.

__Anyway, now that I've finished with the games from 2004, I thought I'd write up a full list of all the games in my collection that I've covered up to this point. As I said, most of them are new to me (and you can check the backlog for my "first impressions" comments), but there are a few old favourites mixed in there, including some educational titles that were among the cornerstones of my childhood.

First Impressions Review Diary 5-Mar-2022

__Hello. I'm posting this the weekend after Shrove Tuesday. I hope everyone enjoyed their pancakes.🙂

__If this is your first time reading my blog, I always post on the first Saturday of the month, at noon on the dot, and my blog consists of very brief reviews of movies or video games I'm seeing/playing for the first time. They're compiled from my Twitter feed, which is always the first place I jot down my thoughts. I used to write much longer reviews, but I find that the more movies you see, the harder it becomes to think of things to say without repeating yourself. So I have the utmost respect for those who write long reviews on a regular basis!

__I'll be talking about both movies and video games this time. Obviously, the big release at the moment is The Batman, and I will actually be going to see it later today, but unfortunately just after this post's deadline, so you'll have to wait until next month to hear my thoughts. (This happened with a couple of cinematic releases last year as well.)

__The few movies I am reviewing this time are all sequels. You see, I usually watch a few TV show episodes in the evening (because I have a huge backlog of both video games and TV shows to get through), but I decided to spend March running through all the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to refresh my memory for the three being released this year, and I didn't have time to start another show before then. As there were six days left in February when I finished the last show (which was Mr Bean, by the way), I decided to fill in those evenings with three film series consisting of only two movies, watching the original one evening and the sequel the next. In all cases, I'd seen the original before (which is why they don't qualify for these reviews), but not for a long time.

__So let's comment on those three sequels first.

First Impressions Review Diary 5-Feb-2022

__Hello.🙂 How's your year going so far? I've been keeping my head down and sticking with my daily routine of going through all my unplayed video games (sorted by year) and, in the evening, watching a few episodes of TV shows I'm crossing off my watchlist. Welcome to my latest batch of brief Twitter-length reviews of what I've played/seen for the first time over the past month. (TV shows are exempt because I'm not quite sure how to review them.)

__Before we get into today's list of video games, let's start off with a movie. Among the shows I watched recently was Animaniacs, which did have a direct-to-video movie spin-off called Wakko's Wish. I remember seeing ads for it on Cartoon Network when I was young, but never saw the film itself until now.

Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish (1999)

It's kind of an animated version of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, with the whole cast racing to the wishing star. It feels a tad unfocused juggling all the characters, but I like how they're a chorus on almost every song.

My rating: 75%.

__I also watched the Flash Gordon serials for my latest evening viewing. Now, I group my DVDs by category – movies, TV shows and miscellaneous – but I wasn't sure where to place those serials. They are episodic, and I guess they were sort of the TV shows of their day, but IMDb and all other sources categorise them as movies. I've now decided to swap them from TV shows to miscellaneous. In the meantime, if you're curious, here's my brief thoughts on them:

First Impressions Review Diary 1-Jan-2022

__Happy New Year, everyone!😀

__I always put up my "first impressions" posts on the first Saturday of the month. But, by an amazing coincidence, this time that happens to be the first day of the month, and of the entire year as well! What a perfect way to ring in the new year!😀

__This is my recap of all the movies and video games I watched throughout the month of December. (If you're new here, that's how it is with games. I'm going through all the not-yet-played ones in my collection, sorted by year. I'll usually play them for a while, but if it becomes clear that I can't progress quickly, I'll start watching a longplay to see the rest.) Now, I already covered some of the movies in my "top ten favourites of the year" list, sometimes in slightly more detail, but everything deserves equal treatment here.

__Section one: cinema releases.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

It's kind of a live-action version of Into the Spider-Verse.🙂 It acknowledges the character's core philosophy, while also giving the other two Spider-Man film series one last hurrah. It has its faults, but still very enjoyable.

My rating: 85%.

The King's Man (2021)

Both the humour and creative camerawork of the original Kingsman are almost completely absent. This one takes itself entirely seriously, resulting in a lacklustre story rooted in an all-too-familiar overprotective father scenario.

My rating: 50%.

My Top 10 Favourite Movies of 2021

__Happy New Year's Eve. We've come to the end of 2021, so you know what that means.🙂 It's time for me to look back on the year and pick out my ten favourite movies.

__So how was the year overall? Well, I got my vaccine and, among the year's movies, saw at least one that I rated five stars; that alone makes it a huge improvement on 2020!😀 Unfortunately, the virus shows no sign of slowing down, so not only will many people's stories be a lot sadder, but it'll probably be a long time before our everyday life returns to what it was two years ago, if at all. For better or worse, this year did at least take a few steps in that direction. Most relevant here is the reopening of cinemas on a more permanent basis – though still under heavy restrictions, obviously.

__If this is your first time reading one of my year-end lists (or if you just need a reminder), let me briefly go over the criteria I set for what qualifies as a 2021 movie. It simply has to have been released for public consumption within the year, be it in cinemas or on a streaming platform. Movies that haven't been seen outside of film festivals don't count, and neither do movies that were released in another country in an earlier year. This year was especially problematic in that regard, because the release schedule towards the end of 2020 was very messy indeed! Several awards contenders weren't released publicly until the early months of the following year, including Nomadland, which may have won Best Picture for 2020, but its earliest non-festival release date makes it a 2021 movie in my book.

__Now, before we get into the list itself, this would normally be the point where I pick out the year's most disappointing movie. But it was unusually hard to pick a winner this year because, while there were quite a few movies that fell short of my expectations, there were none that fell so miserably short that they stood out as an especially crushing letdown.

First Impressions Review Diary 4-Dec-2021

__Hello again.

__Well, December has arrived. 2021 is almost over. I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday season.

__This may or may not be my last "first impressions" post of the year. There are a few upcoming movies I want to see, like West Side Story, Spider-Man: No Way Home and The King's Man, but I'm still pondering whether to deviate from my usual schedule for these posts (the first Saturday of the month) and share my thoughts on them before the end of the year.

__In the meantime, enjoy my Twitter-length comments on everything I've watched and played since my last post on November 6th.🙂

__Section one: cinema releases. The good news is that, unlike the last two months, I won't be seeing anything later today that'll just miss its chance, so I won't leave you hanging.🙂

Eternals (2021)

There are some good ideas in there, but they're undermined by haphazard pacing and at times awkward acting. The random, extended flashbacks break the flow of both the narrative and character development. Easily the worst MCU movie to date.

My rating: 50%.

Last Night in Soho (2021)

The horrific imagery mirrors the emerging cutthroat nature of the fashion (and entertainment) industry, and the scenes where Eloise and Sandie switch back and forth are most impressive. It's a good movie, but not without its flaws.

My rating: 70%.