Batman and Harley Quinn Review (2017, directed by Sam Liu)

Welcome to my review of the newest animated movie from DC called Batman and Harley Quinn. It was directed by Sam Liu, who made previous DC animated films Justice League: Gods and Monsters and the controversial Killing Joke adaptation.

Right off the bat, I’m going to say that I wasn’t really a big fan of this one, with my main complaint being the tone. It’s very comedic and silly, which in of itself isn’t a problem, as I’ve enjoyed Batman being portrayed that way in stuff like the 1960s Adam West show and the animated series Batman The Brave and the Bold.

But those were more innocent, whereas this has much more ostensibly adult content like a bit of violence, but mostly just sexual humor and explicit language. So it’s not really a tone that I’ve personally seen in Batman media. It kind of goes overboard in the risque material and is far from subtle. They also oversexualize the female characters to a ridiculous and juvenile degree.

As you may expect given the title, Harley Quinn plays a huge role in this movie to the point of basically being the main character. She has never been one of my favorite Batman characters, but this actually wasn’t that bad of a portrayal of her as her personality isn’t quite as over the top as it sometimes is. Usually, Harley comes as a package with the Joker, but he’s only referenced and doesn’t appear.

I don’t claim to be a Batman expert, but I’ve read my fair share of comics, watched the shows, and seen all the movies, and not once have I encountered a fart joke. Not only does this movie have one, but it goes on for a long time and isn’t particularly funny or clever.

There’s also part of the plot that’s been very controversial and it happens near the beginning so I don’t consider it a spoiler. That’s the fact that Harley Quinn and Nightwing hook up, which is played for laughs and doesn’t really have an effect on the story.

Batman and Nightwing and made to look a little too incompetent for my tastes in order to make Harley Quinn look better. Having an odd tone is one thing, but going against the essence of the characters is much less forgivable to me.

The voice acting is one of the strengths of Batman and Harley Quinn and that starts with the legendary Kevin Conroy as Batman, who is great as always. Loren Lester also reprises his role as Nightwing, but I thought his performance was mediocre.

Instead of Arleen Sorkin, the most popular Harley Quinn voice actor, she was played by Melissa Rauch from the Big Bang Theory. Even though a lot of people have been complaining, I found her version less annoying and silly than how she often sounds.

The art style is highly reminiscent of Batman The Animated Series, which makes sense as Bruce Timm was an executive producer, one of the writers, and makes a quick cameo as Booster Gold. The animation may nostalgic for those who watched the cartoon, but this isn’t nearly enough to cancel out the negatives about this film.

The story is serviceable but generic and involves Poison Ivy trying to turn anyone into plants. She has help from a pretty obscure villain that I had never heard of called Floronic Man.

The plot ends in an incredibly abrupt and anticlimactic matter that borders on insulting the audience.

Some of the dialogue is pretty cringy with Nightwing actually using the term “BFF” and lines like “Human won’t give a crap unless we force them to.”

There’s even an extended musical number that goes on for two whole songs. It’s mildly amusing at times but doesn’t deserve this much time devoted to it. It’s sort of just filler to pad out the runtime.

In conclusion, I’ll give this movie a 4 out of 10. There were a few fun aspects but not nearly enough to outweigh the glaring flaws.

The Science Fiction Films of 1971

Science fiction films finally made it big in the 1950s but weren't that popular in the 1960s. They started to creep back in the early 1970s with several successful dystopian movies and 1971 has multiple big examples.

The most significant sci-fi movie of the year was definitely dystopian but didn't feel much like other films in the genre, and that's Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

Kubrick is considered by many to be the best director of all-time, making classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, and Dr. Strangelove.

This was an adaptation of a well-received novel by English author Anthony Burgess written in 1962. The book is excellent and Kubrick's movie is pretty faithful to it, especially compared to some of his other literary translations, such as The Shining, which Stephen King, the author of the source material, wasn't a fan of.

A Clockwork Orange has been discussed to death so I won't spend too much time gushing over it but suffice to say, it's an absolute masterclass in cinematography, editing, and acting.

It qualifies as science fiction in my mind as it's set in the future, but it forgoes most of the tropes most commonly associated with SF such as aliens or time travel.

It doesn't show or focus much on advanced technology and someone is even shown using a typewriter. There are some tiny futuristic cassette tapes, but they're not fundamentally different from what was available at the time.

However, society is definitely different from the 1970s, especially in terms of fashion, interior design and the slang argot called Nadsat created specifically for the book and utilized heavily in the film.

The History of Video Game Movies (Part 4: 2010-2014)

Part 1: (1990-1999)
Part 2: (2000-2004)
Part 3: (2005-2009)

There were a couple of big successful films based on video games in the early 2000s, but in the latter half of the decade, they were basically all failures critically and mostly bombs commercially as well.

Unfortunately, in the 2010s this trend continued as the big-budget video game movies all got poor reviews.

The first one of the decade was Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, released in the United States on May 28, 2010.

The Prince of Persia games were platformers that started coming out in 1989 and they've appeared on dozens of consoles and handhelds since.

Disney produced and distributed the movie version, along with Jerry Bruckheimer, who has produced countless huge hits, like Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Armageddon.

They chose Mike Newell as director, who had a pretty varied resume with films including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Donnie Brasco, and Four Weddings and a Funeral.

The music was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams, who wrote the scores for Gone Baby Gone, Kingdom of Heaven and Shrek. However, I know him more for his amazing work composing the music for the Metal Gear games, doing every main entry from Sons of Liberty to The Phantom Pain.

The production budget was around $200 million and it grossed over $336 million worldwide. This isn't a terrible figure, but definitely underwhelming. Disney was hoping to make this a franchise, but it didn't make nearly enough money to justify sequels.

Prince of Persia was mediocre at best. It's not appalling, just bland and boring. The time travel scenes are kind of cool visually, but those are the only memorable parts of the movie.

The critics seem to agree with me as the film's Rotten Tomatoes rating is only 36%, which is sadly relatively high for a video game movie.

Black Christmas (1974): Mini-Review

Black Christmas definitely deserves its reputation as one of the best horror of films of the 1970s, as well as being an early and very influential example of a slasher movie. It's more subtle and understated than a lot of its followers, though.

The plot involves a bunch of sorority girls getting threatening and sexual phone calls, which are effectively weird and disturbing.

It's hard to explain without spoilers but eventually there's a reveal that serves as an example of an extremely famous and common horror film trope/cliche. This is surely one of, if not the earliest, uses of this now incredibly cliche plot point, and I always find it interesting to see one the first uses of any well-known film trope. I'm sure anyone who has seen the film would know what I'm referring to.


This is also one of the first big examples of a horror film titled and based around a specific holiday or day, like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine, and countless others.


The villain in Black Christmas is great and one of the creepiest slasher bad guys in film history. There's even an abortion subplot, which is pretty daring for it' time.

The ending is fantastic too and features a very eerie final shot. Overall, the cast is pretty good, and there are a few familiar faces you might recognize, like Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in the Superman series. There's also Keir Dullea, who was the main character in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and John Saxon from Enter the Dragon, Dario Argento's Tenebrae, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.


I highly recommend watching this to anyone who has even a passing interest horror, and it's a must watch as soon as possible if you're a slasher or 70s horror fan.

Black Christmas was remade in 2006, but I haven't seen that version yet.

Cujo (1983): Mini-Review

Cujo is okay, but inconsistent and overall nothing special. This first part of the movie before the crazy rabid dog stuff starts happening is pretty boring and I wasn't particularly interested in the characters' affairs and personal drama. I was pretty much just waiting for Cujo to start attacking people.

Once he does, the film definitely starts improving. It does a reasonable job of getting across a tense atmosphere and Cujo is effectively intimidating and scary. It just takes way too long in getting there.
They did a good job of making up the dog so he looks rabid, although he looks pretty cute without the makeup.


I understand they couldn't just have a whole movie of a woman and her child fighting off a dog, but there wasn't enough meat to the story to be compelling. I haven't read the book, but I'm sure the affair plotline was significant as I've heard the movie was relatively faithful. So maybe this just wasn't enough of a story for a feature film and would have worked better as a short or a TV episode or something like that.


Also, don't expect any gore, the horror is more psychological, which isn't at all a bad thing.
I'd recommend this if you've already seen a decent amount of 80s horror and just haven't gotten around to this yet.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) [Mini-Review]

Halloween III: Season of the Witch is infamous for its (in retrospect) baffling decision to not feature Michael Myers or even be set in the same universe as the original two films. In fact, Halloween is a fictional film in Season of the Witch's universe.

Producers John Carpenter and Debra Hill wanted to turn the Halloween brand into an anthology of unrelated installments that all took place on or around the holiday. Apparently, they were hesitant to work on an another one in the series, and this was the only way they'd do it. This may have worked better had they not have already made Halloween II, thus firmly associating the name with the character of Myers, as well as actors like Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance.

Fans were disappointed that there was no Michael, and reviews were negative. It took six years for the franchise to come back with Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. They made sure to put him in the title to make sure audiences knew they wouldn't be disappointed again.

I wasn't alive at the time, so I knew before I watched it that it was an oddball in the series and that Myers would come back for more movies. If you just think of it as its own thing, it's not that bad, but certainly not that great either.

Not only does Season of the Witch have a new continuity, it also represents a genre shift for the franchise as while it is a horror, it's also science fiction.

Stars Tom Atkins and Stacey Nelkin give passable performances, but I can't get over how creepy the age difference between them is, and their relationship feels very forced and sudden. She basically throws herself at him without having shown any previous signs of chemistry or attraction.

One of the positives of the film is that John Carpenter did do the soundtrack, which is always a good thing and sets the atmosphere. Unfortunately, a really annoying jingle also plays throughout that will undoubtedly be stuck in your head for days.

Curse of Chucky (2013) [Mini-Review]

Curse of Chucky is a surprisingly solid sequel. Most horror franchises run out of steam by the sixth installment by this is much better than Halloween 6 or A Nightmare on Elm Street 6, for example.

The fourth and fifth Chucky movies brought the series more towards horror-comedy, but this went back to the roots of the franchise and is a relatively serious horror film. It was also the first one to be direct-to-video and the first to be shot digitally.

Despite being less comedic, it doesn't take itself too seriously and manages to strike an appropriate tone.

Bride and Seed of Chucky introduced a family for the title character, but Curse goes back to having him as the only talking doll.

It was directed by Don Mancini, who created Chucky, has written all the films, and directed Seed of Chucky.

Brad Dourif returns as the voice of Chucky and even appears in the flesh for the first time in the series since the original Child's Play. It's pretty cool to see him, but it looks a little odd as they try to recreate his look from the time period.

Brad's daughter, Fiona Dourif plays the lead role. This may seem like nepotism that could hurt the quality of the film, but these movies don't require Oscar-level acting and she had already appeared on shows like Deadwood and Law and Order: SVU. She even had a small part in P.T. Anderson's The Master.

She actually does a pretty good job, considering she was relatively inexperienced at the time and the film largely centers around her character.

This was described early on in development as a reboot or a remake and it seems like it could be at first, but by the end, it's clear that it takes place in the same continuity as the previous installments and there are plenty of neat homages and references to the other Chucky movies.