Gloria Oliver - Unveiling the Fantastic

Mini Movie Reviews 5/26/19

Morning, all!

Pressed for time, so no Virtual Tourist this week. Instead, we have two Mini Movie Reviews and some news!

Aladdin

This is a live-action remake of the animated 1992 Disney film with Robin Williams (uncredited at the time). They kept the flavor and fun found in the original animated version. Almost all the original songs were included (they left out Jafar’s twisted rendition of Prince Ali. One of my favorites! Wah!), and some had minor lyric changes. (At the time the original was released, there was a lot of push back, so I guess they decided to be politically correct?) There is one new song for Jasmine. There are minor changes in plot, but they wove them in nicely, mainly having to do with Jasmine.

All the characters are represented, and they did a great job with the non-human ones. Abu, Rajah, Iago (Since parrots can speak, he still does!), and carpet (carpet was awesome!). The special effects were great! Costumes were made to resemble those in the animated film. Will Smith did great as the genie. There were also bits of homage to the original thrown in as well.

Overall, they did an excellent job. Should be fun for the entire family. Rating: 3.75 out of 4 (I think I messed up my rating scale a few months ago. Ugh.) Hubby’s Rating: Worth Full Price to See Again.)

John Wick 3

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

While Chapter 2 was a disappointment, Chapter 3 makes up for a lot of it. This chapter starts minutes after the end of Chapter 2. The High Table is taking steps to erase John from the world as well as anyone who showed him any mercy or favors. The fact it was one of their own who warped their rules to get his seat, is never admitted to and they want to crush it all away.

The action hardly ever slows — lots of inventive fighting scenes and weird locations. The fight in the stables got extra kudos as Keanu showed horse knowledge – watch John closely in that section, he always lets the horses know he is there. This is a basic bit of horse knowledge that will keep you from startling them and getting kicked! 🙂 They even added a couple of western movie horse trick moments we’ve not seen in years! Nice.

I was super thrilled to see Mark Dacascos – he does an excellent job as Zero. Half fanboy, half ninja assassin. He was a riot! (The song playing at the sushi place is “Ninja Re Bang Bang” a super adorable song. Hubby knew what it was on the first few notes! lol) Some higher graphic violence in a couple of places. Halle Berry as Sofia was fun as well. Her dogs are awesome! Also quite nasty! Guys, you will cringe at what they do. Lol.

Betrayals, alliances, rule-breaking, this film will fill up your action quotient quickly! Left open for Chapter 4! Rating: 3.75 out of 4 (Hubby’s Rating: Worth Full Price to See Again!)

News!

Re-edits on “Inner Demons” and “Cross-eyed Dragon Troubles” are complete! New covers by Charles Bernard are being converted to cover flats, and I will be sharing those with you soon – can’t wait! They are awesome!

Virtual Tourist – Subnautica 5/12/19

Mini Movie Review

Pokemon Detective Pikachu

Pokemon Detective Pikachu – This movie was so cute! It was awesome seeing all the pokemon with actual fur, feathers, etc. The story is more complex than expected. There are lots of red herrings to keep the audience guessing. All the weird stuff, like Pikachu being understood by Tim, all have explanations. This was a fun little film. I just wish they’d given Jigglypuff more camera time! Lol. Rating: 3.75 out of 5 (Hubby’s Rating: Worth Full Price to See Again!)

Subnautica

This freaked me out. You could hear moaning through the water, but seeing it was such a surprise!

There are six or more of them, all different ages. You can tell by looking at the top carapace. This specimen is an older one. He has all sorts of plant life, coral and even some minerals on his shell.

A picture of the beast’s underbelly. They are truly fascinating.

Sunset on the alien world. There is a lot of beauty here.

Glowing life form. Quite beautiful. The fauna and flora changes depending on what zone you find yourself in.

Drooping Stinger – gorgeous but don’t get too close. They pack a bit of a punch. So be careful. (I also got carried away and let my oxygen get too low. Time to panic! lol.)

The still burning Aurora and the reddish moon.

There is more than just water everywhere! Here’s some dry land. Rescue is imminent. A passing spaceship picked up Aurora’s distress signal.

We are not alone! A building of alien origin. Might there be alien lifeforms here as well?

I did want to wish all the Mom’s out there a fabulous and well deserved “Happy Mother’s Day!”

Virtual Tourist – Tales of Bersaria 4/28/19

Mini Movie Review

Avengers: End Game – First off, be aware this movie is 3 hours long! It won’t feel like it, but your bladder will know. So FYI! lol. There was a lot to like about the film. Tons of emotional fodder and we get to see characters that have been gone for a while. Tons of humorous and serious moments. Some fun mixed character interactions. It’s only in the last half hour or so that the plot becomes forced as there are certain things they want to happen, regardless of the fact there are better alternatives. They also don’t take certain facts into account during least one of the time travel moments.

(SPOILERS!!!!!) – Quill getting bushwhacked on the dead planet. They totally ignore the group of bad guys who show up on the planet when he’s there. An unconscious Quill would mean a Dead Quill (by alien rats or by bad guys!). Plus the two picking up this rock would have been ambushed just like Quill. (These guys were acting separately from Thanos’ other peeps.) Doctor Strange/Iron Man – Strange wields power, and like the Ancient One, uses the Eye of Agamotto. So would he not be better able to survive or shield himself when using the five Infinity Stones? Yet that avenue is never pursued in any way. Cap’s decision at the end – while for me it was a squee moment, on further thought there’s no way he could pull it off. Would someone of his moral fiber be able to not fight crime or injustice when he could make a difference? All for selfish gain? I think not. (Plus this also gives the finger to Bucky! He gets left behind!) Also, while the moment with Falcon was very moving, but if you’re not acquainted with the comics, it seems strange, especially since he’s not done any leadership before this or has been shown to have powers of his own.

I was disturbed by the fact they held a funeral/vigil for Tony, but they did nothing for Natasha! Why did they not do both together? They knew all the same people. Why would they shut her out like that? She doesn’t get her own movie and now no sendoff either? Come on!

I was able to ignore some of this stuff way better than hubby. Just be warned! Super build up and awesomeness for convenient letdowns. Rating: 3.5 out of 5. (Hubby’s Rating: Better for Matinee. (Yeah, he was not happy! lol)

Tales of Berseria

Some really nice details! I believe this is an Inn at Loegres.

A super cold winter. Not that Velvet feels it.

Crystal caves. What are those exorcists up to?

Moss filled caves, almost jungle like. The goal is near.

Gorgeous coastal view! Look at that sky!

One of the many ways the Abbey is restricting the populace. Giant lock system restricting trading by ship.

The pirate ship Captained by Airfried. He’s currently missing, captured by the Abbey. Velvet and her companions have joined them as they have similar paths and goals.

Tales of Berseria - ships coming to port

Heading to port. Really love this ship!

View from port out to the open sea. Calming, isn’t it? 🙂

I will say the Abbey does have some impressive churches.

Hope you have a great weekend! Till next time. 🙂

Virtual Tourist – Tales of Bersaria 4/21/19

Morning!

Mini Movie Review

Hellboy – This film is like a reboot of the Hellboy franchise. Think of it as a prequel/retelling. It’s very well done. The cast was great! While Ron Perlman did a great job in the previous two films, it has been 12 years since the last one. David Harbour picks up the mantle seamlessly. Great special effects, loads of action, even some twists and turns. Overall, it was quite enjoyable! Rating: 3.75 out of 4. (Hubby’s Rating: Worth Full Price to See Again!)

Tales of Bersaria

The big betrayal! This is where all the bad stuff truly begins.

Artorious – Velvet’s brother-in-law and mentor. Now turned murderer.

A spell in motion.

Artorious’ Malach companion. Three years later she’s seen enough of what he is doing to know he has to be stopped. She releases and is later consumed by Velvet. (Malach are a spirit race, which until recently couldn’t be seen by humans.)

Velvet is free of her jail cell, but must now fight her way out. Her only thought, revenge.

Velvet and Artorious’ Malach.

Magilou – a witch also imprisoned in the island jail. She’s an enigma of sorts. Is also hardly ever serious and loves to poke at all the members of the group. Yet there’s more to her beneath her odd facade.

A closeup of Velvet.

Typical Magilou. 😛

The first town Velvet and her new companions see after the boat they stole crash lands. Huh, I didn’t take a pic of Rokurou. 🙁

Hope you and yours have a wonderful Easter.

Virtual Tourist – Tales of Berseria 4/7/19

Morning!

Mini Movie Review

Shazam – I will admit, though I love Zachary Levi, I wasn’t too sure how this film was going to turn out. Luckily, it more than met expectations. The kids were fantastic! Plus the film had other elements they did not touch in the previews, which made for some unexpected surprises. The movie has a lot of levity, but it also shows there’s darkness. Evil doesn’t just come from monsters. Rating: 3.75 out of 5. (Hubby’s Rating: Worth Full Price to See Again.)

Tales of Berseria

This is a Japanese console game that has been converted for PC. You have the option of both English and Japanese for the voice-overs, which is nice. Unlike some games out there that have been brought to PC, they did an excellent revamp on this one.

I’ve not played this type of game before, where you have multiple characters that fight in a group, and you switch and maintain all of them. But the learning curve hasn’t been too bad. 😛

This is Velvet. The start screen goes through a small sequence and she walks towards you as the game loads.

There is a demon blight that has spread across the land. One that turns people into monsters. Monsters that attack everyone around them.

This is Velvet’s village. She lives here with her brother-in-law and her younger brother.

This is the forest just outside her village. The graphics are lovely. The little figure on the lower right means there’s a dialogue sequence you can start by pressing ‘T’.

A set of ruins past the forest. They sit a top a cliff overlooking the ocean. It is here that bad things will happen and alter Velvet forever.

Velvet’s home at the village. Places you can enter have the blue dotted ring at the entrance.

Inside Velvet’s home. That’s her younger brother, Laphiset. He’s a little sickly, but very bright. Velvet is rather overprotective of him.

Lovely view, no? Laphiset wants to see the world! Velvet just wants him safe.

A touching moment with her brother.

That night, however, is when everything changed…

Have an awesome week!

Virtual Tourist – GRIS 3/10/19

Well, between the health stuff, company merger, and daylight’s savings time, my plans today were put in peril. But I will persevere!

Mini Movie Review

Captain Marvel – Depending on who you are and how deep you are in comic book fandom will make a HUGE difference on what you’ll think about this film. It’s a popcorn flick, entertaining with a lot of cute moments. As long as you don’t look below the surface, it’s enjoyable. Seeing a young Coulson totally did it for me. 😛 I thought Brie Larson did a great job. There’s been a lot of flack about her not being able to act, but I didn’t see that. If anything, I have to give her kudos for not just acting with words and expressions but her whole body. Carol Danvers’ confident and easy attitude screams from the character just by how she walks down a corridor after the first escape.

While the errors regarding canon are many and various, some of the other problems were just lazy. For example, the Skrull Talos spoke like some punk out of the ’80s and ’90s when, if you take into account the timeline as presented, he had not yet spent much if any time on Earth. (If he had, there would have been several critical bits of information he would have already known about and therefore made the movie moot!). Another big one was with regards to the Kree. All Kree have blue skin, and all the movies and TV shows have presented them that way. The only exception is sometimes some have patches of pure white skin (which makes them looked down on). Rather than try to come up with a plausible reason to tell Carol why her skin was different, they just turned half the Kree population Caucasian. Lazy.

If you can ignore stuff like that, you should enjoy the film. It had a nice pace, cool effects, excellent combat sequences, and Goose. I did love that they let the Skrulls have their super funky chins. Rating: 3.25 out of 4 (Hubby’s Rating: Worth Full Price of Admission.)

Virtual Tourist – GRIS

The gardens are a wonderful area. It is also where you pick up the ability to SING!

Singing affects things and is also visual. The rings you see here are from her voice. It also makes flowers bloom!

Love the luscious colors.

The unknown. Look a the gorgeous pastels!

An underwater hallway in the gardens. You can’t sing as a fish.

The bush is made of water, so I can swim in it. The yellow line flips the gravity. Gliding past the top drops you up to the floor/ceiling of the other side. Lol.

I love the colors, the implied textures, even the depths.

A half inverted area and major singing spot.

The star path to the meeting the tortured self.

It is just darn pretty!

Hope you’ve been staying warm out there. Winter is still trying to hang on, but it is a losing battle. 😛

Virtual Tourist – Deus Ex: Mankind Divided 10/28/18

Morning, all!

Mini Movie Review

Hunter Killer

Hunter Killer – a sub movie! Woot! Hubby has been chomping at the bit to see this one. 🙂 The film has all the submarine movie tropes and then some. Some of the big pieces on the plot don’t quite fit or point you in directions never followed up on, but ignoring those, you’re in for a fun ride. Multiple groups are involved in the mission, so you get action from several directions and by various groups. Rating: 3.25 out of 5 (Hubby’s Rating: Worth Full Price to See Again!)

Virtual Tourist

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

No subways are running from the station, so Jensen has to make his way over on foot.

The electronic newspaper in the game. Headlines and stories will change as the game progresses. Nice way to give players more info.

Look at the awesome wrap around screen! Sweet!

Close up picture of the augmented troublemaker following the orders from the cabal. 😛

That is one cool chandelier!

The rest of the place is nice, too! This one gives a better view of the room.

A meeting underground

Culinary delights – grilled mouse on a stick.

Aerial view of the city of London!

The DNA strand buildings are too darn cool!

That’s it for this week. Hope you have a marvelous day!

Virtual Tourist – Witcher 10/21/18

Morning!

Weird week. All the rain and cold were trying super hard to make me sick. I muddled through – yay! But somehow though we thought we had Fan Days this weekend, we did not actually have a booth. Boo! But it’s given me time to fight against catching a cold. Yay! But I didn’t get much done this weekend. Boo! Lol.

Mini Movie Reviews

Crazy Rich Asians

Crazy Rich Asians – this film has been out a while, but it’s still going strong. The preview clips I’d seen were awful, but hubby had read good things about it, so we took a chance. Glad we did. Most of the film is in English with a dabbling of subtitles here and there. It’s a love story as well as a clash of old vs. new, familial responsibilities vs. self, rich vs. poor, and other clashes. All the little details and side characters made the film adorable and quite funny. There are a lot of lovely views of Singapore as well! The film was a lot of fun. Rating: 3.75 out of 5 (Hubby’s Rating: Worth Full Price to See Again!)

Witcher 3 – White Orchard

Look at that gorgeous sky! Lots of beautiful scenery abounds!

As you can see in the picture, the flora is super detailed. Lovely!

Gorgeous! I could look at the clouds all day. Lol

I took this one because of the free-roaming horses! The game also has deer, rabbits, and other fauna running around.

My first main Witcher contract. Hunt down and get rid of a Griffin running rampant through the countryside. Not an easy task!

An actual sacrificial lamb.

Geralt has been looking for his girlfriend Yennerfer, but she finds him instead.

Yennefer – Geralt’s girlfriend before he lost his memory in the original game.

Yennefer has convinced Geralt to go with her. His foster daughter Ciri has been seen and is in danger from the Wild Hunt. (I love the look she’s giving him! Hee!)

Geralt after a mandatory bath and shave. (Hilarious situation, really.) Emhyr var Emreis, the ruler of Nilfgaard sits in the back. He wants his daughter Ciri found. His reasons are not quite the same as Geralt’s.

Stay dry! Stay healthy! Have fun!

Virtual Tourist -Wither 3 10/14/18

Morning!

Between quarter end at work and all the rain, I have no brain cells to rub together. Wheee!

Mini Movie Reviews

Venom

Venom – the film is a bit slow as they set up the pieces, but once Venom connects with Eddie Brock, the wild and fun ride begins. Full of snark and adorable bits, it plays down on the horrific elements of what Carlton Drake and the symbiotes have done and are trying to do. Rating: 3.75 out of 5 (Hubby’s Rating: Worth Full Price to See Again!)

Virtual Tourist – Witcher 3

Still, inside a dream, this is the view from Yennefer’s apartment.

A view of Kaer Mohren in the dream.

The dream turns into a nightmare. The Wild Hunt is here, breaking the dimensional barrier to come into our realm.

Geralt wakes from his nightmare to frustrating reality. He’s been trying to chase down Yennefer for over six months now that his memories have returned.

Look at that gorgeous sky!!!!!!

Loved the little details in the first tavern we visit. Beautiful colored flowers painted in the walls. A bit of color to push away the dreary existence in the middle of a war-torn area.

More of the tavern and a view of my mentor.

Nilfgaard outpost in White Orchard. The conquering side. Locals are not thrilled at their presence.

Captain at the Nilfgaardian outpost. He’s trying hard to be patient with the locals, but that patience is being tested.

A new day? Could be the end of one as well. Lol. I can’t remember. But a lovely view either way!

Obligatory Promotion Section!

If you’ve not seen it yet, please take a look at the first book trailer for Alien Redemption!

If you like what you see, please consider”liking” the video. Sharing it would be even better! I need to start getting the word out, despite the book release being months away. Promotion is the hardest part of being an author. So any help would be much welcomed! Thank you!

Feel free to sign up to receive blog posts straight to your inbox, so you don’t miss a thing! 🙂

Virtual Tourist – Witcher 3 9/30/18

Morning, all!

Let’s do this!

Mini Movie Reviews

Smallfoot – an unexpectedly deep film. They tackle some tough subjects. The animation was great. There are loads of cute and amusing moments. Rating: 3.75 out of 5 (Hubby’s rating: Worth Full Price of Admission)

The House with a Clock in its Walls – The film has some great special effects. The story is told from Lewis’ point of view, (the boy) so there is a lot we see coming that he doesn’t. In that respect, it made the movie somewhat predictable. Still, it was a nice bit of fun. Rating: 3.5 out of 5 (Hubby’s Rating: Worth Full Price to See Again!)

Virtual Tourist – Witcher 3

Hubby had Witcher 2 and 3 from sometime back. I tried doing Witcher 2 but the dizzying factor was too high, and no means to tone it down in the options. I moved on to Witcher 3, and have had little problems in that respect. YAY!

The beginning sequence is done in a 3D coming book style. Worked very well! Dark times are upon the land as old evil has come through the veil.

They mention the origin of Witchers. Children mutated through magic to make a breed more suited to fight against ghosts and monsters.

The Wild Hunt has come through the veil. The land is in the midst of war, so the Wild Hunt is roaming the countryside for their nefarious purposes unchecked.

Start screen for the game. Hubby bought a season pass with the game when he brought it, so it shows two add-ons at the bottom there. The image moves. Also, whenever you hit escape to save a game or pause it, it keeps a picture of where you are at the time. I thought that was a nice touch!

This is Geralt – he’s the Witcher who is the focus of the games.

War is everywhere. Things that have happened in the previous games have led to the current bad situation.

Geralt’s lover Yennefer. This is a dream he’s having while searching for her. He’d lost his memories at the end of the original Witcher game and had forgotten all about her. Some mild nudity shows up here and there.

Yennefer – she is a sorceress. Geralt and his teacher have been looking for her for the last six months.

Lots of lovely details! You can also see the minimap and active quest on the right.

Let the games begin!

Hope you have an awesome week!

Aladdin

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

News!

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Mini Movie Review

Subnautica

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Mini Movie Review

Tales of Berseria

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Mini Movie Review

Tales of Bersaria

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Mini Movie Review

Tales of Berseria

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Mini Movie Review

Virtual Tourist – GRIS

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Mini Movie Review

Virtual Tourist

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

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Mini Movie Reviews

Witcher 3 – White Orchard

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Mini Movie Reviews

Virtual Tourist – Witcher 3

Obligatory Promotion Section!

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Mini Movie Reviews

Virtual Tourist – Witcher 3

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