"Project Hail Mary" (2026)

I went to see this in the theater during... I think its last week in theaters. And I really, really liked it, despite my general dislike for seeing movies with more than like two other people around me.

Despite not being Roman Catholic, I do know what the Hail Mary is, and I also know that the title isn't referring to the prayer; it's referring to what's called a "Hail Mary pass". Basically "this probably won't work, but there's a chance that it might, and we're going to lose anyway, so we may as well try." Which pretty well summarizes the plot of this movie. As Cave Johnson from Portal 2 said, they're throwing science at the wall to see what sticks.

(If you don't know the plot, I shall direct you to my mom's review.)

I really liked that they kept the technobabble to a minimum. It helps that we don't know how the astrophage works, and we're trying to find out. But thanks to that, the movie's science seems like something we could realistically do. (Well, the Earth science, at least. How does |the alien Rocky| make |solid xenon|? I don't know, and neither does the protagonist. But |it's aliens|, so it doesn't have to make sense.)

Incidentally, the protagonist's name is a pun. His name is Dr. Ryland Grace. Now think about the text of the Catholic prayer.

I actually cried multiple times while watching this. And this is me; I don't often cry from fiction.

This is a movie, and it's rated PG-13.

5 stars. This has probably earned a spot in my top three favorite movies.

(Endnote: Spaceship!)

"Wicked" (2024)

I liked this movie once the plot picked up, which unfortunately was about two hours in. 

I also had to keep pausing it because I couldn't take more than a few minutes of these people at a time. (Once the love interest Fiyero showed up, that escalated to not being able to take more than a few lines of dialogue at a time.)

Some of the songs in this are good. Some of them are okay. Some of them are frankly irritating. I liked the main character Elphaba's first solo ("The Wizard and I") for how adorably happy she is at someone finally being nice to her. The dance scene at the Ozdust Ballroom wasn't my favorite, but I was amused by how it was basically Elphaba going like "You don't want to let me into your dance number? WELL HOW ABOUT I MAKE MY OWN DANCE NUMBER!"

I must confess that I watched this solely because I wanted to write a fanfiction where Dr. Dillamond (a talking goat teacher from the movie) is replaced by Asgore Dreemurr (the final boss of Toby Fox's 2015 game Undertale). Don't ask me why, my brain just does this sometimes. And because I can't really write a fanfic about something I haven't seen/read/watched (and also because I was bored), I decided to watch it before writing the fic.

Oh yeah, the clockwork train. They have a train in Oz, except it's made of clockwork and for some reason it runs on a rack-and-pinion system instead of on rails. There are such things as rack railways, but those don't quite work like that; they have normal wheels to support the car, and the rack-and-pinion is just to haul it up the mountain. Also they're pretty much only used on steep inclines, whereas this one is on seemingly completely level ground. It also doesn't seem to be able to pull any cars, which makes it... pretty much completely useless? I really don't understand why they don't just use a normal train, aside from that it's not as aesthetic.

(Plus how are you going to turn without screwing up the gear ratio? Are the giant gear wheels driven by a differential? What even powers the thing? Why the heck did they leave the giant gears on the front exposed where someone could screw up the whole train by just chucking a rock into them? I have so many questions.)

This isn't a videogame, it's a movie, and it's rated PG. I'd personally maybe bump that up to PG-13, but that's just me.

3 stars.

(Endnote: If anyone starts singing "Popular", I'm leaving.)

"The Wizard of Oz" (1939)

Well, now I know where quite a few more quotes are from. "We're off to see the wizard," "And your little dog, too," "We represent the lollipop guild," "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain," "We're not in Kansas anymore," and "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" (Probably among others that I'm forgetting.)

They changed a bunch of things for this movie. The most egregious one was going the "it was all a dream" route, which I rather dislike, but there were a couple of others, most notably: the Emerald City was actually green instead of white-but-looks-green-because-everyone-wears-green-glasses, and there was a lot more stuff before the tornado happened. (I'm pretty sure it was just like a page in the book, which somehow translated to about fifteen minutes in the movie.)

They removed and/or changed some more of the book's plot points as well, although mostly unimportant ones (such as the shoes being silver in the book). So, all in all, this isn't an amazingly faithful adaptation, but it gets the basic story, and the various cut sidetracks along the way (like the weird hill full of dudes who punch you in the face with their heads, or the land where everything is porcelain) would have bogged down the movie.

 

I don't have tons to say about the movie version, and I already said stuff about the book.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: the same thing as the movie is rated, as usual. So, E (the movie is G).

I'm giving the movie 3 stars, the same as I gave the book version.

(Endnote: My favorite part in the movie was the Scarecrow getting his brains and immediately reciting the Pythagorean theorem.)

"Howl's Moving Castle" (2004)

That's young Howl with the blue hair, btw.

Ayep, this is Howl's Moving Castle: the anime. This is the second anime I've ever watched, after My Neighbor Totoro (which I didn't review because this is a book blog, not a movie blog, and My Neighbor Totoro isn't based on a book.)

Just warning that I will spoil a truckload of things here, and I can't redact pictures.

The iconic picture.

So yeah, the plot goes off the rails fairly quickly; this never happened in the book. Actually, a lot of the stuff in this movie never happened in the book. That doesn't mean I didn't like it, but if you're some sort of purist... don't watch this. Both the book and the movie are good in their own ways, but they aren't the same.

The Witch of the Waste, voiced by Lauren Bacall.

 

But the basic premise is there: Sophie Hatter (voiced by Emily Mortimer when young, Jean Simmons when old) gets turned into an old lady by THE WITCH OF THE WASTE!!!, then goes to find Howl's moving castle because, as I said in my review of the book, "I'm an old lady anyway, YOLO". And she meets a turnip-headed scarecrow. (He hops along on his pole like he's using a pogo stick; also, his glove-hands flap up and down when he does it. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a gif of that.)

The fire demon, Calcifer, is still here; in the English dub, he's voiced by none other than Billy Crystal. It's hilarious.

The plot goes further off the rails from there; two nations (I'm guessing they're Ingary and High Norland, from the original book) declare war on each other. They seem to have WWI-era-ish technology, but with giant bird-shaped metal things replacing the zeppelins. Also they have flying kayak things.

Howl's Titular Moving Castle.

The king of Maybe-Ingary wants Howl (voiced in English by Christian Bale) to fight on his side in the war. The king of Maybe-High-Norland also wants Howl to fight on his side in the war. Howl thinks this is completely stupid and that the war shouldn't be going on at all.

Now I'm going to skip until we hit this bit, where:

TFW you accidentally dye your hair orange.

 

Howl accidentally dyes his hair orange, and freaks out about it.

Then he is completely melodramatic about it and covers everything in green slime. This is in the book, by the way. He's usually less melodramatic in the movie than the book, though.

 

Sophie has the most completely hilarious reaction to all of this.

THE CREEPY MANDALA FIGURINES!!!

 

That part when Madam Suliman depowers the Witch of the Waste via creepy mandala figurines.

I read the art book; it named the creepy mandala figurines, not me.

She was a guy in the book.

Behold, Madam Suliman, voiced by Blythe Danner. (They always pronounced her name like "Sullivan", but with an "M" and not a "V". It bothered me.) Yes, Madam Suliman is a possibly-wheelchair-bound (her chair does have wheels) woman, but she's also a very powerful witch.

More creepy mandala figurines.

Case in point. Also yeah, Howl showed up.

They nope out of there on a flying kayak. For some reason, they take the Witch of the Waste with them, as well as Madam Suliman's errand dog Heen.

More plot shenanigans ensue. This leads to Sophie accidentally destroying Howl's castle by removing Calcifer, then making her own castle by feeding Calcifer a bunch of her hair.

The day after I watched this, I was musing about the 4-H pledge, but couldn't remember it, and my mind came up with this:

"I pledge my HEAD to clearer thinking, my HEART to greater loyalty, my HANDS to larger service, and my HAIR to Calcifer so he can fix the moving castle." (I couldn't remember HEALTH.)

Unfortunately, an offhand comment of Calcifer's ("Imagine what I could have done with your eyes! Or your heart!") leads to the Witch of the Waste locating and stealing Howl's disembodied heart. This promptely causes the castle to go to pieces again. It breaks in half, and Sophie's half falls off a mountain and smashes.

 

Sophie breaks down crying, which is understandable. The front door sorta survived, though, and for want of a better idea she walks through it.

The other iconic picture.

And ends up in Howl's childhood, when he first finds Calcifer. This leads to the other iconic picture. That's Kid!Howl, btw.

Sophie yells to Howl that she knows how to help him now, then falls through a hole in the floor. 

(An interesting note from the art book: The hole in time is the only thing in the movie that's entirely computer-animated. Everything else is either pure drawing or drawings pasted over computer animation. The reason they gave was that they wanted the hole in time to look "alien" with respect to the rest of the movie, basically.)

 

When she finds the door and walks out of it with Heen (the door promptly implodes), Howl in the form of a giant bird is there. They have a touching reunion, and then Howl flies Sophie back to the broken remnants of the moving castle.

Yeah. That. It shortly breaks completely, and would fall off a cliff except that the turnip scarecrow saved it by sticking himself into the ground in front of it and acting as a brake.

 

Sophie impulsively kisses him on the cheek, which turns him back into a human because the curse on him could be broken with true love's kiss.

 

The human who got turned into the scarecrow.

Fortunately for him, it only had to be someone you love truly, not someone who truly loves you, as the Witch of the Waste explains (her explanation is, "It looks like your true love is in love with someone else".) Sophie and Howl are irrevocably an item by this point.

Nice picture, except Howl's shirt is kind of a dumb color. Maybe it'd be better in greyscale.

And now for a bunch of random pictures I couldn't fit anywhere else.

 

That looks like a still from an old movie. His shirt is better, though. (I don't hate the color of his shirt now as much as I did when I was writing this review. Huh.)

Normal Markl (Howl's Apprentice).

Markl in the beard disguise.

 

Markl gets this awesome beard disguise.

 

The Witch of the Waste (and, later, Madam Suliman) has these blob men as henchmen.

Howl turns into a bird at various points. This is the coolest-looking of his iterations.

 

This is Calcifer being grumpy when Sophie first makes him let her use him as a cooking fire. It's so funny I couldn't not include it.

Edit: Forgot to give this a videogame rating and a star rating. E10+, 4 stars.

"Murder in Three Acts" (1986)

(Note: The spoiler tags are grey because I didn't want to have an entirely white post. It was going to look derpy no matter what, so now it just looks... less derpy.)

 

First time I've ever reviewed a movie on here! This may or may not become a thing, but probably won't. The only reason I'm doing this is because I really wanted to read someone's review of this movie, but my mom didn't review it. So I'm writing a review because I want to read a review, if that makes sense?

|Anyway, the movie is a(n?) Hercule Poirot mystery, about which I will spoil... everything. As such, everything is in spoiler tags.|

|Poirot (Peter Ustinov) is invited to a house party or something (I forget how he gets there, I just know it's instigated by his British friend whose name I keep forgetting) and we meet the main cast.|

Speaking of whom, the main cast! 

|Hercule Poirot (still Peter Ustinov) is the main character and a detective.|

|Egg (Emma Samms), whose name is never explained, is... well, I can best describe her as a sassy and energetic girl who's abysmal at driving.|

|The Reverend Babbington (Philip Guilmant) is just a kind of generic clergyman.|

|Dr. Strange (Dana Elcar), about whose name the jokes simply write themselves, is just a kind of generic doctor guy.|

|Charles Cartwright (Tony Curtis), the host of the party, is a great actor, now retired and divorced.|

|Hastings (Jonathan Cecil) is Poirot's aforementioned British friend.|

|Ricardo Montoya (Fernando Allende) is a Socialist. He isn't actually, people just think he is. Poirot doesn't care if he is or not.|

|Freddy Dayton (Nicholas Pryor) is just kind of weird and unstable. Not insane, though.|

|All these characters, plus some other ones who don't play huge roles in the story, go to a dinner/cocktail party. And then... the Reverend Babbington puts his hand to his throat, chokes, and dies. Dr. Strange declares that yup, he's dead.|

|Egg suspects murder. Vehemently. In the face of pretty much everyone else, who is of the opinion that basically "Y'know, the Reverend Babbington was getting old anyway. And there wasn't any poison in his cocktail. And there wasn't really any way to make sure he took that one cup. And who would want to murder an elderly pastor anyway?"|

|Well, obviously, the murderer would. But Poirot doesn't see it that way, so he flies back to the U.S. from... I think this movie is set in South America somewhere. Charles Cartwright also heads back to the States.|

|Then we timeskip, to when Egg and Hastings are calling Poirot on the phone. They notify him that Dr. Strange (not the superhero) is hosting another dinner party, in the same place, with most of the same people.|

|At the dinner party, everything is fine and dandy until Ricardo Montoya randomly shows up, his car having broken down. They let him join the dinner party.|

|Everything continues being fine and dandy until the butler informs Dr. Strange that a Mrs.... Rushbridger has arrived. Dr. Strange takes a drink of his whatever-they-were-drinking, stands up, and walks a few steps.|

|When I was watching this, I had this conversation with myself.|

|Me: He's gonna die.|

|Me, two seconds later: Called it.|

|Yeah, Dr. Strange dies in pretty much exactly the same way as the Reverend Babbington did. Charles Cartwright bursts in on Poirot to inform him of this. Both of them fly out (at different times) back to South America.|

|The autopsy on Dr. Strange reveals that he was poisoned with ben-zo-tine. (Whenever they say "Benzotine" in the movie,  they always pronounce it "ben-zo-tine", with the accent on the last syllable.) And guess what, it just so happens that the late Reverend Babbington's death is also consistent with benzotine poisoning. Egg, naturally, is all like "I told you so."|

|Hercule Poirot sets about investigating, with the help of Hastings and another old acquaintance of his. That's a police guy, Colonel Mateo (Pedro Armandáriz Jr.) who I liked almost immediately. He is, and this is crucial for mystery-genre police, competent. When Poirot's like "We should interrogate the waitstaff," Colonel Mateo's reaction is "Yeah, we did that already." Like I said, Mateo is great.|

|Anyway, Mrs.... Rushbridger ends up being a plot point. Despite the fact that she's also insane and in a mental hospital. (Whenever they mention her name, they do a sort of dramatic pause between "Mrs." and "Rushbridger". At least, someone I know thinks it's for Dramatic Emphasis; I just think it sounds like people are having a hard time pronouncing it. But we never learn her first name, so I just call her "Mrs. Dramatic Pause Rushbridger".)|

|Poirot and Col. Mateo go to visit her, which is an entirely unproductive visit because she's catatonic. So they leave, and some time later, she dies. From eating chocolates. Laced with benzotine. I think we can all see where this is going.|

 

|Charles Cartwright meets up with one of the other random people I didn't bother detailing, and in the course of that, offers her coffee. She freaks out (it might be poisoned) and spills it everywhere, which everyone is very nice about.|

|Poirot hosts another cocktail party in his hotel room. He mixes the drinks himself, so nobody can die of benzotine poisoning. Then Charles Cartwright dies of benzotine poisoning.|

|Except not really. He was just pretending (did I mention he was a great actor?), at Poirot's behest. With the evidence-by-demonstration he gets from this, plus an offhanded comment by Egg, Poirot finally solves the mystery.|

 

|Basically (OK I KNOW THIS ALL IS SPOILER TAGGED BUT THIS IS LITERALLY THE ENDING I'M SPOILING HERE) Charles Cartwright just put poison in a random cup at the first party, and the Reverend Babbington happened to drink it. This was a "dress rehearsal", as it were, for his actual target: Dr. Strange, who knew that Charles Cartwright was kinda insane. Mrs. Dramatic Pause Rushbridger was just killed to make it look like she new too much, thereby throwing people off the trail. Oh, and that coffee I mentioned was actually poisoned.|

|(END ENDING SPOILERS)|

|So yeah, Poirot does the requisite "Explainerate" for a detective finishing up the story, and we get our denouement. I'm not going to bother detailing that because this post is long enough already.|

I give this 4 stars, and it's rated Not Rated as a movie. I'd give it E10+ to T as a videogame.

|(Endnote: While watching this, I started to have a horror of anyone drinking anything. Thankfully that didn't translate to having a horror of me drinking anything, as it might have done in the past. Also, the movie instilled me with a burning desire to listen to Metallica's "Sanitarium".)|