DB Reviews- Beauty and the Beast 2017

Image from Trailer Addict

BEST FILM I'VE SEEN IN YEARS! 

Disney's classic tale as old as time gets a live action remake! It's me, DB and I welcome you to my review of Disney's Beauty and the Beast! Set in a small village outside of Paris, this movie tells the tale of how a prince turned into a beast, how he had to earn the love of a beautiful girl who loves books and how a curse was broken. This beast had to learn to love this girl and earn her love in return before the last petal of an enchanted rose fell. 

I loved the animated version when I was a kid and the live action version, to me, was just as AWESOME! The effects were really great, the story was on point with a few new things added to the mix, the actors were good and even the music was good too! 

Emma Watson did a good job portraying Belle, the beautiful Disney Princess that loves books. I think Mrs. Watson does very well in movies that involve enchanted things (remember her role as Hermoine in Harry Potter?). Her singing voice wasn't that great, but her acting was! 

Dan Stevens did a good job too as the Beast! The Beast needed to have emotions throughout the film and I thought Mr. Stevens did a good job portraying those emotions as the movie progressed. The Beast, at first, was a frightening thing, but as the movie played through, he was supposed to start feeling love and happiness and I thought Mr. Stevens did a good job acting all those emotions out on screen. I even like his song "Evermore", one of the new songs featured in the film. 

Luke Evans was Gaston in this film. He did a good job because he brought a darker version of the Disney Villain to the live action scene, something that some of you might think was needed for this character. I liked that too, though I have to say my favorite dark Disney villain is Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. 

Josh Gad, of Frozen fame, played LaFou. LaFou is Gaston's sidekick. I've heard the news about Gad's character being being gay in this film.  I don't mind it at all! I can see it all through out the film when Gad was on screen. His singing voice is ok, given the fact that he already has a few Disney songs under his belt in Frozen. 

Kevin Kline was even in this! He played Maurice, Belles eccentric father. I liked it. I learned that he's known for his eccentric roles, so this fits him perfectly! 

Ewan McGregor did a good Lumiere, the living candelabra. He had a higher pitched French accent, which was different then his animated counterpart. I liked that. His version of "Be Our Guest" was more spoken then sung. I didn't like that as much, but the special effects during the song was amazing! 

Sir Ian McKellen was the voice of Cogsworth, the clock. His performance of this character was definitely different then the animated counterpart. He gave him a deeper voice in the live action remake. I thought it was good. 

Emma Thompson protrayed Mrs. Potts. I thought she was the best of all. Her voice sounded great for the character. Not quite Angela Lansbury (who boycotted the film because she thought it was not a good idea), but still great! 

I definitely liked that Disney added some new things to this film that were not in the original film. They gave us a new character (Maestro, played by Stanley Tucci), a few new songs and more story that we didn't see in the original. I think that some of those new parts were definitely needed! 

For example, I think that the story of what happened to Belles mother was needed! However, this involved a very dark and very real part of France's history. This took place during the period of time that the film was based in. This is called the Black Plague (or Black Death, according to Wikipedia), which took place during the 1330s. Belle's mom, unfortunately, caught the deadly disease and passed away.   

For the music, I would say the best new song is "Days in the Sun", which replaced "Human Again" in this film. The best song performed from the original film that was featured in the remake was "The Mob Song". I thought Mr. Evans had the good chops for this song! I would nominate "Days in the Sun" and "Evermore" for best original song adapted for visual media! "Gaston" was not too bad. Thompson's version of the title song wasn't bad either, though I still like Lansbury's version better. 

The story was brilliant! Is was definitely on par with the animated version! The costumes were good as well as the sets! 

Overall, and I repeat, BEST FILM I'VE SEEN IN YEARS! I can't wait till it comes out on Blu-Ray and Digital! I definitely recommend that you bring your family to see it! You could even see it twice, three times, or a million times! 

Should this film get a nomination for Best Picture? I say, a million time, YES! Best Actress for Emma Watson? I would say OK! 

Thanks for reading! 

UPDATE: This film was NOT the first to feature both Watson and Thompson. They co-starred together as Professor Trelawney and Hermoine Granger in the Harry Potter films. 

DB Reviews- Captain America: Civil War

Image from JoBlo.com

Hello everyone! It's me, DB, and after many months, I'm finally able to bring you my review of Captain America: Civil War! WARNING: This review does contain spoilers! So, if you don't want to be spoiled yet, stop reading this and go see the movie. Then you can come back to read this. 

I gotta say, I LOVED THIS FILM! The story was great! I know Marvel did not intend to use any parts of the original Civil War comic book story line, but I noticed references to it during the film. For example, the Slovakia Accords are the MCU (that's Marvel Ciinematic Universe) version of the Superhero Registration Act. Also, the Scarlet Witch destroying a building is reference to the school exploding at the beginning of the Civil War story in the comics. I thought that the writers of this film did a great job taking the Civil War comic story and making it their own in the film.  

The acting was good too. Chris Evans and Robert Downey, Jr reprised their roles as Captain America and Iron Man. I felt that they were good choices when they were chosen to play the roles in their hero's respective franchises. In fact, everyone in this film did a good job! Almost everyone that had roles already in the MCU came back to play them again in this film! Plus, I can't wait to see Tom Holland's Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Homecoming later this year! 

The action was great! With a Marvel movie, you have to have fantastic action/special effects scenes and lots of them! This movie did not disappoint in either! It had tons of action! 

I know this review was short, but I didn't have much time to make it. 

Overall, I give this film 5 out of 5 stars! The story was great, the action was fantastic and the actors did well. 

On a side note, I do like how Marvel intertwines their movies with their TV series. What I mean is, Marvel adds elements of their latest movie into episodes of their hit TV shows, like Agents of SHIELD, which I'm a HUGE fan of! I even met Elizabeth Henstrige and Brett Daulton once! I like that! 

Anyway, thanks for reading! 

DB Reviews- Hidden Figures

Image from winnipegmovies

Hello there! It's me, DB and I'm back to bring you another review! This time, I give you my review of Hidden Figures, the movie that stars Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae as three colored women who changed NASA for the better! This review does contain spoilers, so if you don't want to be spoiled, stop reading and go see the film. Then, you can read on to see what I have to say about the film.

This film got a nod for Best Picture at this year's Oscars. I can definitely see why! The film is about 3 women who work for NASA as mathematicians working to get an American into space before the Russians in 1961. This film revolves around the lives of those women.

First off, I liked the story a lot, especially since it was based off a book that in turn was based off actual people and events. The story was long, as was the movie, but it was good. You could understand what was happening during each scene thanks to the story. I thought it was well written!

Secondly, I thought Taraji P. Henson did an AWESOME job portraying Kathrine Johnson, a woman who helped calculate the launch and landing trajectories for the mission that was flown by late astronaut John Glenn. She was powerful! Her portrayal of Mrs. Johnson was excellent! She was loud when she needed to be. Her emotions were on cue and perfect! Also, I thought she worked well with her fellow coworkers in the film, especially Spencer and Monae and even Kevin Costner. She also believes in the Lord!

Speaking of Spencer, I thought she was good in this film. She has a calm voice, so she didn't raise it too much in this movie. Her emotions were on time too, which means she could portray those emotions well during a certain scene. I thought she did well handling the IBM machine too!

Monae was good as the 3rd Hidden Figure. She spoke with a southern accent, which I thought fit her role well, especially since her character is in Virginia.

Kevin Costner and Kirsten Dunst also made appearances in the film. I felt that Costner did ok in this. Is this my favorite Costner film? No, Field of Dreams is. But, Costner did pretty good in this one. He was tough, but fair. Dunst didn't have much screen time as the others did, but she did good. Still, I liked her better as MJ from the Spidey movies.

Jim Parsons was in this too, but he didn't get much screen time. He definitely sounded and acted like Sheldon, his character from the Big Bang Theory, in this film.

I also liked the nostalgia in this film. This film was set in 1961, so the set designers had to make sets relevant to that time period. There were a lot of classic style cars in this film, which was needed.

The film also revolves around segregation, which was a HUGE thing back in the 60s. This film was set 2 years before Dr. Martin Luthor King Jr's epic "I Have A Dream" speech. Back then, they had different bathrooms, different restaurant entrances, even different schools for both white and African American people. They portrayed that here in this movie because these 3 women lived during that time. These 3 women changed the course of NASA in that period!

My favorite scene from the film was when Costner's character broke down a Colored bathroom entrance sign, thus allowing the women of both races to enter that bathroom at the same time whenever they needed to or want to.

Overall, I'm glad the Academy chose this film as a nomination for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress. 4 STARS! The story was long, but I felt that this story needed to be told. The acting was good, the sets were good. Everything was good about this film!

Before I close this post, I wanted to talk about segregation. Like I said, this was a big thing in the 60s. This was a tough time in America. This was the time where colored people and white people treated each other differently, rather then equals. You could easily see that in this movie, especially during the scene where Spencer's character and her kids sat in the bus. She and her kids sat at the back of the bus since this movie took place before Rosa Parks, who sat at the front of the bus and gain big attention doing so. During this time, important people, like Mrs. Parks, took a stand! In his Dream speech in 1963, Dr. King reminded the people that when our country was discovered and created, it was created with equality in mind. He reminded us that we are supposed to treat each other equally, no matter what the color of our skin was. During his speech, he said, and I quote, "I have a dream that my four little children would one day live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the conflict of their character. I have a dream today!"

I proudly salute Mrs. Parks, Dr. King and the 3 genius women that this movie was focused on. Where would the USA be without them and the hard work that they did?

DB Reviews- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions

Image from yugioh-world.com

Hello there! It’s me, DB and today, I bring you my review of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions! WARNING: This post contains spoilers, so if you want to see the film, but you don’t want to be spoiled yet, then please stop reading this post and go see it! Then you can come back to read what I thought of the film.

So, first of all, the story takes place after the Ceremonial Duel between Yugi and the Pharaoh Atem. Seto Kaiba sets his sites on reassembling the Millennium Puzzle. He wants to duel Atem one more time to settle their 3,000 year old score! The puzzle isn’t completed because 2 pieces are missing and Kaiba knows who holds those pieces, Yugi and the new character Aiyami.

So, Kaiba hosts a tournament to retrieve those missing pieces. He invited only Yugi and Aiyami to compete and he introduces his new Dimension Dueling system, which includes a new Duel Disk.

Aiyami has a story too. He, along with his sister Sarah and a bunch of other orphan kids, are rescued by Shadi from a man that did not treat them kindly! Shadi then tells the kids of the Millennium Items, but he was interrupted when Bakura’s father entered the chamber where the items were supposed to be, the same location that was used in the Ceremonial Duel. Bakura’s dad sought out the Millennium Ring, one of the Items that had dark powers in it. Bakura’s father and Shadi were killed, but the kids, including Bakura, were spared, with the ring choosing Bakura as it’s host body.



Fast forward to the future, where Yugi and his friends discussed what they wanted to do after they graduated. This was their senior year at Domino High School. Teia wanted to be a dancer in New York, Joey wants to be a pro duelist and Yugi wants to create his own game while helping his grampa at the shop.

Aiyami has other plans. He wants to destroy the world and recreate it as he sees fit, which sets off one last grand adventure in the original series!



Ok, now that that’s all out of the way, here’s my review. I LOVED THIS FILM! Here’s why:



First off, the animation was on point! It was smooth and colorful! I felt that the animation department should get a BIG thumbs up for their work! I also liked the detail, especially when they did the cards. I liked that when the animators put in the cards, they did them based on the region that the movie was playing in. Since this movie is playing all around the world, the animators decided to draw the cards in the form of how they were used in a region. For example, since I live in the US, they designed the cards in the form of the TCG which English names and texts for effects. I liked that a lot! That’s what they did in the US, but I believe that they did it in different ways around the world. It depends on which country you see this film in. They could’ve made the cards in Korean OCG style in Korea, etc.

Second was the voice acting. You can’t have a Yu-Gi-Oh movie without the original voice actors!

Third was the introduction of the Dimension Duel. I liked that concept more then the Solid Vision in Arc V. I liked it because you could use your imagination a bit. You can determine how strong your monster is as long as it doesn’t exceed it’s original ATK points. For example, if you had a Blue-Eyes White Dragon and your opponent has a weak monster and only 500 LP left, you can then make your Blue-Eyes 500 points stronger then your opponents monster. Also, you don’t need any sacrifices to summon monsters, just like Duelist Kingdom.



I thought the story was a good, basic Yu-Gi-Oh story. I know there’s lots to it when I described it earlier in the post. However, I do recommend that you see the first few episodes of the original series to at least try to understand what is going on in the movie.



If you were able to see the film in theaters, then you should’ve gotten a promo card! This time, it’s Obelisk the Tormentor, the Egyptian God card that Kaiba used in the Battle City arc. I think he also used in the Shadow Realm arc too. Let me say this card is SCARY AWESOME! The image is cool! I think you should keep it in case it’s value goes up!



To me, Aiyami made a good villain, though I thought he wasn’t as good as Marik. Put Aiyami with the Millennium Ring and you got something scary, but not as scary as Marik was with the Millennium Rod! Now that was Joker scary! Aiyami’s deck contained the new Cubic cards. I could see this deck doing well at a major event like a Regional tourney or maybe even WCQ events (that’s World Championship Qualifier). How he used the Seeds to create more powerful Cubic monsters is a good strategy.



Overall, I give this film 5 out of 5 stars! I deem this film to be a good finale to the original series! The story was good, the acting was good, the animation was excellent and the cards printed as if they were printed in different OCG/TCG styles was awesome! GO SEE THIS FILM! Thank’s for reading!



BTW, I thought the Bakura back story was good. It answered some questions that Yu-Gi-Oh fans, like myself, wanted to ask!



If you want to see a video version of this review, please click here: https://youtu.be/mdcliaTulfI

DB Choice Awards

Hello all! It's me, DB! Welcome to my very first annual DB Choice Awards post! In this post, I will be awarding a DB Choice Award to movies, sports, video games and TV shows that I think should get one!

Part 1: Movies. This area will contain the movies and stars that I liked the most throughout the 2016-17 movie year. I'll just name off the winners and you can agree or disagree with me in the comments

Best Picture- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.

Best Picture- Drama: Sully

Best Actor: Tom Hanks - Sully

Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence - Passengers

Best Superhero Film: Captain America: Civil War

Best Superhero Actor: TIE: Chris Evans (Civil War) and Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Strange)

Best Superhero Actress: Scarlett Johnson, Civil War

Best Director: Clint Eastwood - Sully

Best Animated Picture- Zootopia

Best Disney Live Action- The Jungle Book

Sports:

Best Play: Brady to Hogan Flee Flicker (vs Steelers Jan 22)

Best Moment: Big Papi's final home game pre game ceremonies (Oct, 2016)

MVP: Tom Brady, Patriots

MVP - Celtics: Avery Bradley

MVP - Red Sox: David Ortiz

MVP - Patriots: Tom Brady

MVP - Bruins: Tuukka Rask

MVP - Other: Aaron Rodgers (QB - Green Bay)

Fantasy Sleeper: Iasiah Crowell (RB- Cleveland)

Video games:

Best game: WWE 2K16

Best character: Mario

Best level/fight: Champion battle vs Stephan (Pokémon ORAS)

Best boss: Stephan

Best Mario Maker level: Mario Ninja Warrior by Dave

TV Shows:

Best show: Marvel's Agents of SHIELD (ABC)

Best actor: Mark Harmon, NCIS and Clark Gregg, SHIELD

Best supporting actor: Michael Weatherly, NCIS

Best actress: Ming Na Wen, SHIELD

Best supporting actress: TIE: Pauley Perrette and Emily Wickersham, NCIS

Best new star: Wilmer Valderrama, NCIS

Best show on CBS: NCIS

Best show on ABC: SHIELD

Best show on Fox: The Simpsons

Best show on NBC: American Ninja Warrior

Best new show: Bull (CBS)

Best animated show: Pokémon XY and Pokémon XYZ

Best Netflix show: Animaniacs

Best kids show: Yu-Gi-Oh Arc V


That's all, folks! Don't forget to post in the comments whether you agree or disagree with my choices. Thanks for reading!

DB Reviews- La La Land

Image from Hollywood Elsewhere

Hello and welcome to my review of La La Land, a new, jazzy musical starring Ryan Gosling (The Big Short) and Emma Stone (The Amazing Spider-Man). This review does contain spoilers, so if you don't want to be spoiled, please stop reading, go see the film, then come back to this post to read what I thought about it. 

The story is this: A guy and a girl fall in love in Hollywood. The thing that brought them together? Jazz! A music genre that, according to Gosling's character, is dying. No one wants to hear it anymore, so Gosling goes out to revive it! That's his character's dream. 

He meets a young girl that wants to be a famous movie star someday! She works at a coffee shop in the Warner Bros lot (even though this film was presented by Summit Entertainment). They fall in love, but it didn't work out. They eventually followed their dreams, but they remember each other when they see each other in the last scene of the film. 

So here's what I think: First off, I don't think Gosling can sing at all! However, I do think he can play a mean piano, or should I say his music double Justin Hurwitz! Hurwitz can tickle that ivory! Gosling did a good job making it look like he himself was tickling that ivory! His character when away from the piano was OK. 

Emma Stone's character was good. Her singing voice was better then Gosling's! Her character has had a lot of frustrations throughout her journey to her dream and I think Stone did OK portraying those issues. She wanted to be a star really bad, but she kept getting interrupted during auditions for different roles and I think Stone did OK with those parts of the script as well. 

My favorite song from this musical was Start My Fire from John Legend. That could be his next hit single! The trumpet and trombone players were good too in this film! The song City of Stars was good, but again my pick for top song is Start My Fire. 

Overall, I give this film 3 out of 5 stars. The things that I didn't like from this film were Gosling's singing, a cheesy dance scene and the beginning of this film. Plus, the people who worked on this film didn't need the flashy cuts. Those are meant for endings of films. Basically, this film is about following your dreams and it has ALL THAT JAZZ! 

I hope you all enjoyed this review. Thanks for reading! 

DB Reviews- Passengers

Poster from Pinterest

Hello everyone! It's me, DB, and I'm back with another review! Today, I give you my review of the new film Passengers starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. This review will contain spoilers, so if you don't want to be spoiled, then please stop reading and go see the film. Then, you can continue to read my review. 

Passengers is a love story that takes place in space. The story tells of a young engineer named Jim (Pratt), who is woken up from hibernation after a ship he travels in hits an asteroid field. He, along with 4,999 passengers, was supposed to go on a 120 year journey to Homecrest II, a planet similar to Earth. However, he wakes up with 90 years to go on the voyage. He then later wakes up a young author named Aurora (Lawrence) and they experience love while trying to figure out why they woke up early. 

I liked the way the story was written. I think that the writers made some memorable lines from the film. It was also easy to follow and to me, that makes a good story. There was drama, a bit of comedy, and some good action in the story. 

I also like the Avalon, the ship where the two main characters were traveling on. The ship itself reminded me of Star Trek, with the automatic doors and the voice recognition (the characters could tell the computer what to do).  I sensed a little bit of Wall-E too in the ship. I say that because the ship was like a cruise liner, offering daily activities, a full bar and even swimming, just like the ship in the Wall-E film. 

I thought Pratt did good as Jim. He did a good job portraying the character in different situations. However, I felt that his character didn't handle the situation where Aurura found out that Jim woke her up.  Other then that, he did fine. 

Michael Sheen's bartender android is probably the wisest of the bunch. I think that some of his lines in the film could be the most memorable. Also, he served coffee in a bar, something that I think is unusual in a bar like scene. Most of the time, you would see people drinking alcohol or throwing fists. I don't like either coffee or alcohol myself. 

Jennifer Lawrence's Aurora was OK. Just don't take away her life, or she will get MAD! I thought Lawrence's anger was good when it was needed. A bit over dramatic, but still good. The same thing could be said for her compassion towards Pratt's character. 

Lawrence Fishburn also had a role in this film, but his character didn't get much screen time. 

Also, I noticed that there weren't many extras in this film, just Jim, Aurura, the bartender and Fishburn. That to me was a bit odd, though I do think the studio did save some money this way. 

Overall, I give this film 3 1/2 stars. I thought the story was well written, the acting was good and the action at the end of the movie was up my alley! My review: A LOVE STORY THAT BLENDS STAR TREK AND WALL-E! 3 1/2 STARS! Thanks for reading!