Batson's Blog

Thanksgiving is the official start to the Christmas season, right? So why not watch a Christmas movie? That's exactly what I decided to do this weekend. I've watched a few of Netflix's cheesy Christmas movies, mostly just to have some sound in my house as I go about chores here and there. Most of them have a facepalm moment or two, but The Christmas Chronicles had multiple facepalm moments. What a horrible movie! I'm typically fairly lenient on the Christmas movies, but it seemed like the writers didn't even try with this movie. It wasn't really bad enough to be funny. It certainly wasn't funny enough to be funny. It was like a bowling shoe: just plain ugly. I was somewhat surprised because with Kurt Russell and Kimberly Williams-Paisley on board, I figured it may be decent. It started off with a heartwarming video montage that made it easy to predict exactly what was going to happen to one of the characters who was in that montage. ...

It took me a while to check out this movie, mostly because it was another unneeded reboot of a popular franchise that wasn’t even that old yet. Angelina Jolie was the face of that character for so long that it felt strange seeing someone else do it (though I think Alicia Vikander may have done a better job). I kind of avoided it out of protest. But I saw it for free recently (that’s always the best price). It was ok. It was a nice set-up for a franchise — the ‘how Lara Croft became Lara Croft’ tale. That would’ve worked well had anyone wanted a new franchise or had Tomb Raider been successful enough to warrant a second film. Unfortunately these days, writers are always planning on trilogies and franchises. They don’t put enough effort into the beginning movie. That’s kind of how this movie played out. It wasn’t bad. Alicia Vikander did a great job actually. Her obvious dedication to the role and believability made the movie much better than it otherwise would have been ...

UPDATE: Nov. 15, 2018 As you can see by these two tweets to the right, CNN does the same thing.  This one is an analysis on the Florida race between Rick Scott and Bill Nelson . It's not just one news outlet that does this.  It's not for or against any party.  It's not just on politics. They (meaning any prominent company with a Twitter account) do this all the time with all kinds of content. It's so annoying if you're someone who is on Twitter or social media on a regular basis. These two tweets aren't even 3 hours apart.  Why are we seeing it again?  I'm sure I'll be seeing it for a third time in a couple of more hours. It'd be nice to see fresh content instead of repeating the same thing, especially when it's about controversial topics in politics. It may seem trivial to complain about multiple tweets, but I think it furthers the divide between us when it comes to multiple political tweets.  It triggers the emotions peopl...

I remember everyone groaning when it was announced that Sony was making a Venom movie. Then they saw the trailer and got excited. I was kind of in the ‘meh’ camp until I heard Tom Hardy was on board to play Eddie Brock. He did such a great job as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises that I figured he’d be a great hero/anti-hero in Venom. And he did! His portrayal of Eddie Brock was very interesting. Always likable but definitely a character with flaws. He was someone you were rooting for even when he was messing up. The symbiote storyline isn’t one that’s been told in this way before. Sure, Venom was in Spider-Man 3 but it doesn’t even compare to this version, honestly. This one was much better. It was done in a more comedic way. The only negative I have is that the comedy almost made the movie a little too cartoonish. Just a little. It felt like Venom could’ve been a little more diabolical. His lines were delivered in a way that seemed like they were supposed to be pun...

'You need to know.'  It's a simple phrase, but it's one that irritates me. So many websites, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages and other kinds of social media use that phrase. To begin with, it was catchy. '5 things you need to know about (________)' Now?  The incessant overuse of this phrase has turned me off of it entirely. It's kind of insulting --- probably because I see it so many times each day. Don't tell me what I need to know. Don't treat me like a child. Don't try to educate me on what you think is important. Don't try to tell me how to think, period. Maybe just give me some info?  Let me decide if I 'need to know' it. I mean, really, what do any of us need to know ?  Probably not 5 to 10 things about a movie or about some singer's personal relationship or about the new season of a TV show. I'm probably overthinking this simple statement but that's what I've ended up at after seeing it...