What I'm Watching
Hello! This is a collection of movies, shows, anime, and other video content I'm watching or have watched in the past, along with any relevant fan content.
Favorites
In alphabetical order:
The Book of Life (2014)
I enjoyed this movie a lot! It's one of the first movies I watched with my mom as an adult, since she doesn't often like intense movies. She grew up more connected to her Mexican heritage than I did, and this was a way I could connect with her through it.
Centaurworld
It was pretty cool! I enjoyed the second season less than the first, and my impression of the ending was that it failed to follow through on where I thought it was going with the themes, or it failed to express what themes it was going for. Still a fave; the worldbuilding was really fun, and I like the characters a lot.
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
What a work of art. The themes in it are similar to the kind I want to express in my own writing.
Ghostbusters (2016)
This was my first introduction to the Ghostbusters franchise and I really, really enjoyed it. Afterwards, I saw the original movie and Afterlife, and enjoyed those plenty. I have not seen Ghostbusters 2. I'm told I'm not missing much.
The Good Place
OK, I'll admit: I did not finish this show, not because I didn't enjoy it, but because I am very bad at watching shows. I loved it, actually! I got all the way to the beginning of the fourth season, and I hope to finish it one day. It has a lot of interesting things to say about morality that made me think more about the subject, even though I already agreed with what it was saying.
Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts | (link to fanworks pending)
I enjoyed this show a lot. I had one problem with how it ended, but as a whole, I consider it a favorite and a good watch.
The Lego Batman Movie (2017) | (links to fanworks pending)
I appreciate Batman and Joker's relationship in this, I really do. Yes, the whole "hatemance" thing could be read as a homophobic joke, but I do not consider it as such, because it was played entirely straight, low hanging fruit aside. Not once did Batman say anything like "gross, we're both guys," or other homophobic comments, and the movie did not present Joker as being "weird" for being interested in Batman–in fact, the movie presents Batman as being in the wrong for not treating their relationship with respect. And, spoilers, but in the end, the day is saved by Batman returning Joker's feelings, and they say "I hate you," with deep, loving emotion in front of the setting sun.
Lego City Adventures | (links to fanworks pending)
Yes, it's copaganda–but it's copaganda that's so over the top that I can't take it seriously. Duke Detain is a cop that's so obsessed with being a cop that the show portrays it as unhealthy. After watching all of seasons 1 to 3, my favorite character is Tippy, and I'll be catching up on the fourth season soon (as of July 2022, anyway. We'll see how much later "soon" ends up being).
Lego Monkie Kid | (links to fanworks pending)
This is such a good show! I finally finished what's been released so far–through season three–and I love it a lot! The animation is very good. I had a great time with it.
The Lego Movie (2014) | (links to fanworks pending)
if i had never watched the lego movie i would have never met my boyfriend whom i currently live with
ANYWAY. I saw this in theaters three times, and for a long time I refused to watch any other movie more than three times in theaters because I didn't want any movie to "beat" the Lego Movie. I bought the 3ds tie-in video game at full price. I downloaded a camrip missing the introduction to show my friends before better quality pirates were available. I own two DVDs and a digital edition. I love you Emmet Brickowski.
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) | (links to fanworks pending)
A feminist masterpiece.
Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu | (links to fanworks pending)
It gets good in season 12, I swear!
The Neverending Story (1984)
An honorable mention to this movie, because while it isn't exactly a favorite, it undoubtedly had an effect on my psyche when I watched it as a child, and I like it still now.
Nope (2022)
This is in my movie log, but it deserves to be added to my favorites, too. It's such a beautifully crafted work of art, it inspired me to study similar techniques for my writing. Absolute masterpiece.
Pokémon: Giratina and the Sky Warrior (2008) | (link to fanworks pending)
My favorite of the Pokémon anime movies. I really enjoyed the way the Reverse World was depicted, and the main villain and his former mentor remain some of my favorite characters in all of Pokémon. Shaymin was pretty cute too I guess.
Promare (2019)
An honorable mention to this movie for having a banging soundtrack and some cool concepts. I liked it a decent amount? I mostly liked bonding with my friend over it.
Princess Tutu
This is a sweet anime with a lot of meta themes that I enjoyed a lot. I think it was very well done, and I loved the characters and how they developed over the episodes.
Revolutionary Girl Utena
My boyfriend wanted to watch this with me, and my God, it was amazing. This is an excellently done anime that covers dark topics respectfully, and has beautiful symbolism throughout.
Movie Log
This starts from July 2022, as I do not have exact dates for many movies before then. Starts with the most recent movie.
July 2nd, 2023
This movie was largely brushed off under the assumption that it would be another poorly done metaphor for racism (think Zootopia), but I think it defied expectations. Elemental was a story about a daughter of an immigrant family who falls in love with someone outside her community. I don't think it's intended to be a 1 to 1 commentary on real world races, rather a story about how our different cultures are important and deserving of respect–and at the same time, they don't make us incompatible.
June 29th, 2023
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken was a fun movie that was, IMO, an unsubtle metaphor for being trans. I enjoyed it! I think it was neat and fun. I want to make an OC to ship with Ruby and her canon love interest (Connor).
June 7th, 2023
I was not the target audience for this movie, but Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was still enjoyable and fun. It's not, like, high-art, and not a movie that's going to stick with me, but hey, it was fun.
June 2nd, 2023
I was super excited for this one. A standward was set with the first movie in the series, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse not only manages to meet that standard, but surpasses it. While it's only half of the story, it was a great opening for the next movie, and I had a great time!
April 5th, 2023
Oh, I was waiting for this one. The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a delight. Judged as a Mario adaptation, it was fantastic, and judged as a movie, it was respectably good! The only criticisms I have is that it was extremely fast paced, which is not necessarily a negative for a kids movie, and that there weren't enough ghosts. I'm waiting for the Luigi's Mansion movie, Nintendo!
March 16th, 2023
Continuing the superhero movies, I saw Shazam! Fury of the Gods and enjoyed it. Not all of the jokes landed, and I haven't seen the previous Shazam movie so I was a little lost in places, but I still thought it was fun.
March 3rd, 2023
First new movie of the new year, after going to three Puss in Boots showings in three consecutive months. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania had some interesting concepts that make me genuinely interested in the next set of Marvel movies. I have a degree of cynicism when it comes to the MCU, but this movie was fun and enjoyable.
December 28th, 2022
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish went really hard. The animation was beautiful, the plot was gripping, and the story felt like a fairy tale in a way that the last Puss in Boots movie (which, to be fair, I don't remember very well) wasn't. All the fairytale elements blended together in a way that made intuitive sense, and the end result was was absolutely fantastic. If this is the kind of care Dreamworks is putting into what is technically a Shrek spin-off movie, I can't wait to see what they do next.
November 29th, 2022
I have all sorts of conspiracy theories about why Disney did almost zero marketing for Strange World, all of them boiling down to how Disney is a deeply evil company. The movie was fantastic, with speculative biology elements, engaging characters, and a hopeful environmental message. I hope every creator working for Disney finds a different publisher for their stories & the resources needed to switch jobs.
October 25th, 2022
I saw Black Adam and liked it. It's a very different superhero movie than what I've seen before, and it was a nice change of pace. I didn't think it was fantastic, but it was enjoyable.
September 14th, 2022
Nope is a masterpiece. For context, I do really badly with horror, as well as scary stories in any genre, but my boyfriend is a fan of Jordan Peele's movies, and I really, really wanted to see this one after they told me how good it was. It was worth it. It's a beautifully crafted piece of storytelling. I also didn't do too badly with it–there's a lot of anticipation in the movie, but it has a payoff, and the whole experience is self-contained. Fantastic. No one is doing it like Peele.
September 13th, 2022
I wanted to see Spider-Man: No Way Home because I was told Doc Ock has DILF energies. He does, but he's not as prominent as I thought. The movie was alright! I had some problems with the message and how it said it, but like, it's a Marvel movie, and I can turn my brain off and just enjoy it.
September 3rd, 2022
Well, I saw Three Thousand Years of Longing, and it was kind of… bad? Whatever the movie's message is, I don't think it tells it very well, and if the message is something about "Love is the Most Important Thing" or "Everyone Wants Love", I profoundly disagree. It also reached a decent place to end like, four different times, which made the actual ending feel like nothing. Not great. Wouldn't watch again.
August 26th, 2022
AMC did a reshowing of Godzilla vs. Kong, and since I hadn't gotten to watch it when it was first in theaters, I decided to go see it. Somehow I managed to avoid spoilers for it, and my God, there was a reveal so good I gasped out loud. I enjoyed it a lot!
August 6th, 2022
I wasn't expecting much from DC League of Super Pets, but it was better than I thought it would be! Genuinely cried when Ace, played by Kevin Hart, reveals his backstory. Granted, I cry very easily at movies, but still. I am also convinced that the villain was boiled alive at the end, though my friend disagrees.
July 27th, 2022
So I watched Minions: The Rise of Gru. It was, uh. Baffling? It had some heartwarming parts scattered among minion nonsense, and I at least mildly enjoyed myself even if I can't call it a good movie. Like, it was pretty bad. Not as bad as Paws of Fury, but like, the bar is on the floor for that one.
July 18th, 2022
This movie was awful. It was multiple kinds of racist, had other bigoted jokes scattered throughout, and one scene had a cat nazi submarine for some reason? Even though the setting is supposed to be based off feudal Japan? Anyway, don't watch Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank.
July 13th, 2022
Lightyear was a pretty good movie, but I would have enjoyed it more if it had been disconnected from the Toy Story universe. I feel like Pixar wanted to make a sci-fi movie and were forced to market it as a Buzz Lightyear movie, when it really could have worked on its own. I did like it, though!
July 8th, 2022
I saw Thor: Love and Thunder on opening night to break in my AMC A-List card. It was ok? I enjoyed it while watching it, but it's not a movie that's gonna stick with me.
What's Next?
Here's my list of Things To Watch, Eventually.
I'm not caught up on some of the shows on my favorites list, actually; I'm behind on The Good Place (stopped in the middle of season 4), Lego City Adventures (haven't started season 4), and Lego Ninjago (gotta catch up on Crystallized!).
I have more cartoons that have been recommended to me that I never managed to watch; Kid Cosmic, Amphibia, and the Owl House stand out. I haven't seen Gravity Falls, either, and I really want to finish Steven Universe, since I dropped off in the middle of the final season.
I'm trying to watch every Lego show and/or movie as well, but we don't need to talk about that.